Overdue
by Smart Aleckette
Summary: It’s been seven years since we last saw each other face-to-face. Don’t you think a little visit is overdue?" It wasn't just a visit that was overdue. . . A Maya x Phoenix fic, taking place soon after Apollo Justice. Spoilers. ::COMPLETE.::
1. The Phone Call

**Welcome to my first (and very horrible) attempt at yet another Maya x Phoenix fic which takes place after the events of Apollo Justice. You know you love all of the variations of the plotline, though. XD**

**Anyway, I didn't intend to write a fic for this pairing – especially not one that took place after GS4 – but, when I was playing the second case and visiting Phoenix in the hospital, I took a look at the stack of DVDs near the bedside table. When asked about them, Phoenix replied, "Some kid I know keeps sending them to me." Hmm. Let's think about that for a second.**

**A person he considers to be a kid + the fact the kid likes the Samurai TV shows = Maya. Which proves they have communicated after Phoenix lost his badge. Which is basically how I got the idea for this story. -nods-**

**Anyway, there are appearances by members from the original cast, and there are some spoilers for JFA and GS4. So, if you haven't beaten either game, beware. Plus, I suck at writing any pairing that isn't Mia x Diego, so please bear with me. Or flame me. So long as you throw in a suggestion or two, I'm good.**

**Disclaimer: The only video games I can design are lame 2-D maze games, and I even suck with those. So if you think I could own/design/have anything to do with the development of the Ace Attorney games, someone call a psychiatrist.**

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**1. The Phone Call**

"_In last week's episode, the Steel Samurai and his arch foe, the Evil Magistrate, faced off in the streets of Neo Olde Tokyo. . ._"

"Do you _have_ to watch that during work?" Apollo asked in a hoarse voice, fiddling with the phone receiver as he gazed at the show playing on the television.

"It's not like we have a trial or something," Trucy replied without turning to look at him. "Besides, the Steel Samurai is the best of the Samurai shows!"

"Well, can you at least make it look like you're working?"

Trucy sighed. "I _have_ been working!" She held up a piece of lined paper, on which was a half-drawn stage and a couple of words. "See? A new act!"

"Can you work harder than that?"

"I will – later. And why's your voice so weird?"

Sighing, Apollo massaged his throat. He really had to lay off the Chords of Steel training, which was making his throat sorer and scratchier every day. He was saved from replying because the show's intro had ended, and Trucy had held up a hand to signify that she didn't want to talk anymore, which was perfectly fine with him.

Apollo watched the first few minutes of the show without really registering what was going on. Half his mind was focused on the portable phone that he was playing with in his hands, hoping it would ring, while the other half was wondering why he hadn't gotten any job offers for over a month. He supposed it was a good thing that there hadn't been a lot of crimes being committed recently, but he had to make a living somehow. Not that he'd make much from his four clients – only one of them, Machi, had paid him with money. His first client, Phoenix Wright, had given him pudding and a job, but other than that, Apollo had gotten _nothing_. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

And at the moment, Mr. Wright wasn't making much, either. The Borscht Bowl Club, who had hired him years ago when he had lost his original job as a defense attorney, had decided to fire him two weeks ago. Mr. Wright, who was supposed to be a pianist but had played poker against willing customers at the restaurant, was trying toa be optimistic for the sake of Trucy, his adopted daughter, but both Apollo and Trucy could see he was troubled. No job meant no paycheck, and no paycheck meant even more trouble with paying the bills.

In fact, the only one of them who actually had a job here at the Wright Anything Agency was Trucy. She was a magician, which was easy to figure out just by her light blue cape and silk top hat. Never mind the fact that she owned "magic panties" and had a puppet named Mr. Hat who popped out of nowhere. She ran nightly shows at the Wonder Bar, and the shows were almost always sold out, especially since the return of Troupe Graymarye, which had been founded by her grandfather and had disbanded seven years ago.

Sighing, Apollo shifted around in his chair to get in a more comfortable position before gazing at the phone imploringly. _Ring_, he begged it. _Please ring. Please, please_–

"Sh, Apollo!" Trucy whispered, staring at the television screen. "This is a good part."

_. . . Did I say that all out loud?_

"Yes, you did," Trucy responded, turning around with a small smile on her face.

Apollo opened his mouth to reply – he wasn't sure what he was going to say – when the phone unexpectedly rang in his hand. Surprised, he dropped it. With a giggle, Trucy paused the show (it was a season DVD) to watch Apollo bend down sheepishly, pick up the portable phone, and press the talk button.

"Hello, Wright Anyth–"

A cheery-sounding woman on the other end interrupted him before he could say anything else. "Hey, Nick! Guess who!"

Confused, Apollo rasped, "Um, I think you have the wrong–"

"What's wrong with your voice, Nick?" the woman asked, sounding semi-concerned. "It sounds scratchy. You have a cold or something?"

"I don't have a cold," Apollo replied hoarsely. "And I'm not–"

"You sure? It sounds like it. Maybe you should get some ColdkillerX and lie down?" she suggested.

_. . . I'm receiving medical advice from some woman who I have never met before, and she thinks my name is Nick. What. The. Heck?_ Apollo thought, staring at Trucy, who stared back with her head tilted slightly to one side, probably just as confused as he was.

Resting an elbow on the table, Apollo replied, "Uh, I don't _like_ ColdkillerX."

There was a pause. Thinking back on it, Apollo realized he probably should've told the woman that his name wasn't Nick, or hung up. But, out of curiosity and a faint hope that she had a job for him, he waited for the woman's reply.

". . . Are you Nick?" she asked, sounding a bit downhearted.

Apollo shook his head, then remembered the woman couldn't see him. "No. I'm Apollo Justice, attorney at law. This is the Wright Anything Agency."

"'Wright' Anything Agency?" she asked, perking up a little. "Does Phoenix Wright work here?"

"Yeah, but he's not in right now." Excitedly, Apollo reached for a memo pad, thinking, _Does she need a pianist? _"Did you want to hire Mr. Wright?"

The woman sounded confused as she asked, "Why would I want to hire Nick? He's my friend."

_So. . . Mr. Wright = Nick. Phoenix, Nick. Nick, Phoenix. Why didn't I see that?_

"So. . . do you want to leave a message for him when he comes back?" Apollo asked, looking around for a pen.

"Just tell him to call Maya – he knows the number. Thanks, Mr. Justice." She hung up the phone, and Apollo scrawled, "Call Maya" on the memo pad. Then he stared at her name for a few seconds. Something, in the very back of his mind, was telling him he knew who this person was. It was just out of his reach, and he struggled to remember, closing his eyes, thinking, _Maya. Where have I heard that name before?_

"Who was that?" Trucy asked, resting her arms on the back of the sofa, breaking his train of thought.

"Someone who knows Mr. Wright," Apollo said, opening his eyes to look at her. "She said her name was Maya."

A look of comprehension dawned on Trucy's face. "Oh! I know her!"

Apollo stared. "You. . . you do?"

"Yeah. I met her after I moved in with Daddy," she explained. "She came for a visit, but she hasn't been here since. He gets letters from her, though, and she calls sometimes."

Suddenly remembering where he'd heard the name before, Apollo snapped his fingers and leapt to his feet. "Maya Fey!" he cried triumphantly. "She was Mr. Wright's assistant!"

Trucy gazed at him with wide eyes. "You know Maya, too?" she asked, surprised.

He shook his head. "No, but I read a lot about your dad and his cases, and the name Maya kept popping up a lot. They met during his second case, I think."

"I don't really know that much about Maya," Trucy confessed. Then her eyes slid to the Steel Samurai season DVD case lying on the floor in front of the TV. "But. . ."

"But?"

Trucy pointed at the DVD case. "Daddy got all those Samurai DVDs in the mail from her."

Apollo gazed thoughtfully at the case. "That explains a lot. Mr. Wright doesn't seem to be the type of person who would like that kind of show. I guess this Maya is a fan, then?"

At that moment, the door opened, causing both Apollo and Trucy to turn to see who had come in.

A tall man carrying a few bags of groceries walked into the room, a thoughtful look on his pale face. He had black stubble on his chin, making him look like a hobo, and this fact wasn't helped by his wardrobe, with his spiky black hair covered by a light blue hat with a smiley face button attached to it and his hoody, which looked like it had been wet and then naturally dried by the sunlight. He noticed Apollo and Trucy staring at him and, looking a bit confused, set the bags down.

"Were you two talking about Maya a minute ago?" he asked, sliding his hands into his pockets.

Apollo nodded, almost guiltily. "Yeah."

Trucy ran over to the grocery bags and started rooting through them. "She called about five minutes ago, Daddy," she explained, pulling out a few bottles of grape juice and setting them beside her. "She wants you to call her back."

The young attorney held the phone out sheepishly. There was something about his boss that had always managed to make him feel awkward. "Here you go, Mr. Wright."

Wright accepted the phone and stared at it for a couple of seconds. Trucy broke the small silence by crying, "Look! Pudding!" Both Apollo and Wright turned to look at her, Wright with a smile on his face, Apollo wondering if this was his pay check for the month.

"How about you two go into the kitchen to have lunch?" suggested Wright.

Apollo checked his watch. "It's only ten after ni–" Then he caught sight of the look on his boss's face, and realized that Wright wanted to be alone. "Yes, sir," he mumbled, piling the groceries that Trucy had taken out of the bags in her pudding-search back inside them and leading the teenager into the adjacent room, leaving Wright alone with a phone in his hand and an odd look on his face.

—_Phoenix Wright—_

Carefully, Phoenix dialed the number for the Fey Manor, wondering about several things, mainly why Maya hadn't left a more elaborate message for him. Was this something important that she wanted to tell him herself? Was it about her little cousin, Pearl, whom he had dubbed Pearls? Was she injured? Sick? Or even. . . dead?

By the time Phoenix heard the click, he had convinced himself that Pearl had either broken her neck, had been diagnosed with a deadly disease of some kind, or was lying in a funeral home. "What happened to Pearls?" he burst out before the person on the other end could speak. "Is she okay? _Will _she be okay? Where is she?"

There was a long, long pause on the other end. "Um, Mr. Nick. . . is that you?"

Phoenix could feel his face go brick red. There was only one person he knew who called him "Mr. Nick," and that person was a certain sixteen-year-old girl he hadn't seen for years. "Y-Yeah," he replied sheepishly. "Is that you, Pearls?"

"Yeah, it's me, Mr. Nick," replied Pearl, and he could hear her giggling on the other end. Then, a voice in the background stopped either one of them from saying anything more. Phoenix could only pick out the words "that" and "Nick" before Pearl added, "Mystic Maya wants to speak to you."

Maya's voice suddenly poured out of the phone excitedly. "Nick! You called back quickly! How are you? How's Trucy? And who's that guy who picked up the phone a little while ago?"

"Hey, Maya," Phoenix replied tiredly. "I'm fine, Trucy's fine, and 'that guy' is Apollo Justice. He's a defense attorney, and he works here."

"I thought he was you for a few minutes," Maya admitted. "His voice sounds kind of raspy. Do you think he has a cold?"

Phoenix replied, "Probably up early doing his Chords of Steel training. His voice gets like that when he does it."

"Chords of Steel training? That sounds cool! How come _you_ never do anything cool, Nick?" asked Maya.

_Same old, same old, I guess, _Phoenix thought with a sigh. "So, why did you call me?" he asked, wanting to get straight to the point.

"Aw, come _on_, Nick! We haven't talked for five weeks! Can't we have a little conversation before I tell you?"

"No," he replied shortly. "Your 'little' conversation will end up taking hours, and I can't afford a large phone bill."

Maya sighed, evidently disappointed. "Okay. I guess we can do all our talking in person, right?"

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah, sure we– Wait, in person?"

"Yeah. I called to tell you that I'm coming back on the train. There's some sort of week-long lecture going on at the Gatewater Hotel – the one we went to see the Nickel Samurai at – about spirit channeling for students studying the occult, so they want me to speak there. I'm bring Pearly with me. Won't it be great?"

"I guess," he responded, rubbing his temple.

There was a long, awkward silence between them. Finally, Maya asked, rather hurt, "Why don't you sound excited, Nick? I mean, it's been seven years since we last saw each other face-to-face. Don't you think a little visit is overdue?"

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah. So, you want to meet at the train station, or what?"

"Yep! Tomorrow, five o'clock in the morning! Thanks, Nick!"

"Wait, _what_?! Five in the morning?!"

But Maya had hung up before he had voiced his issues with having to get up so early. He turned off the phone and placed it back in its cradle, rubbing his temple. This was typical of her, to spring something on him so suddenly it made his head spin. He smiled wanly, thinking, _She really hasn't changed that much, has she?_

It wasn't that he didn't like Maya – she had been one of his closest friends and his assistant while he had been a defense attorney, after all. It was just. . . he didn't want her to see him looking like a hobo, especially not at five in the morning. Like Maya had said, they hadn't seen each other for seven years, and those had been long, long years.

With a sigh, Phoenix sat down on the couch, burying his face in his hands, thinking, _This is going to be one long week._

He had no idea how off the mark he was with that presumption.


	2. Same Old, Same Old

**-whistles while staring at the stats for this fic- Wow. Compared to The Smallest Thing, this fic is doing pretty good. XD**

**BlueRaider: My theory is that some of Phoenix's older self returns once he talks to Pearl or Maya. Like, when you have a change in personality, you act differently around some people but act like your old self around others. (And even if that doesn't work, there's always the argument that no one can relax with Pearl or Maya around.) Glad to know you found it funny! -sucks at humor-**

**lazyguy90: -has now updated- Thanks for the praise!**

**princessphilomena: -meant later- Thanks. -has fixed it- This is my first time writing Maya/Phoenix, actually, and my first time writing anything with Maya in it for about eight months. Apparently, people liked it, since I didn't get any flames, which I was expecting. (XD) Maybe I'll write more.**

**Elixhay: Hopefully, you enjoy the way Maya greets Phoenix. -intends it to be funny, but it probably isn't, as she sucks at humor-**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Phoenix. I'm not talking about Hobo!Phoenix, or Attorney!Phoenix, or Young!Phoenix. I'm not even talking about Human!Phoenix. The Phoenix I'm talking about is owned by whoever invented him in The Phoenix Wright Files. You'll see who he is soon enough.**

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**2. Same Old, Same Old**

"Apollo! Apollo, wake up!"

Sleepily, Apollo rubbed his eyes. _Time to get up already?_ he wondered. Then he remembered that he was the only person living in this apartment, and his eyes immediately shot wide open to find Trucy standing next to his sofa bed, already wearing her signature blue cape and top hat and looking as if she'd been awake for hours.

"_Trucy_! _What are you doing in here_?!" he bellowed, feeling his throat sear with pain. Apparently, sleeping hadn't cured his sore throat from the day before.

Trucy poked him. "We're going to the train station!" she said with a big grin on her face.

Apollo glanced at his clock. It was a quarter past four – in the morning. "Trucy, do you know what time it is?" he grumbled. "And why on earth do you want to go to the train station?"

"Remember when Daddy called Maya back? He said he was going to the train station at five. I want to go see why he's going!"

_I knew it was a bad idea to give them a spare key to my apartment in case of an emergency. _"Why do you need me to go along?" he whined, pulling the sheets over his head.

"I don't want to go alone," Trucy replied, tugging absently at the finger of one of her gloves.

Sighing, Apollo turned over onto his side. "Why not just ask your dad to bring you along?"

"He left ten minutes ago. Besides, it loses its mysteriousness if he knows I'm there," she explained. "Get dressed, Apollo! I _will_ go by myself if you don't hurry."

"What about Mr. Hat?"

Trucy shook her head. "No. If I'm going with someone, I want him to be a real person."

Apollo rolled over again and peeked out from underneath the sheets at her. "Trucy, I never thought I would ever, ever have to say this, but here it is: We are _not_ stalking your dad."

"It's not _stalking_!" Trucy argued. "It's following. Shadowing. But not stalking."

"It is too stalking." Then, with a sigh, he added, "But I can't let you go out there alone; Mr. Wright would literally kill me. Wait outside my apartment, okay?"

She walked out into the hall. Apollo locked the door to make sure she didn't pop in on him – you never knew with Trucy – and quickly threw on his regular red vest over a long-sleeved white shirt, along with a pair of red pants. Then he took a handful of gel and molded his hair into two horns sticking straight up in the hair. He looked at himself in the mirror, moved the left spike in a bit, and then let himself into the hall outside his apartment.

"You took long enough!" Trucy complained with a smile. Before he locked the door behind him, she ran off down the hall, toward the staircase. Sighing, he followed her, wondering why he even bothered with these things.

—_Phoenix Wright—_

Leaning against a pillar, Phoenix waited. And waited. And waited. He waited for a little over an hour for the train that would be bringing Maya and Pearl here for the first time in seven years, trying not to fall asleep. That was a hard feat, as he'd gotten maybe an hour or two of very light sleep, thinking about seeing Maya and Pearl tomorrow. It had been a long time since he'd had to buy them cheeseburgers – and he hoped he wouldn't have to this time – or sit and endure an episode or two of the latest Samurai show, or sit on the couch and watch Kid's Masterpiece Theater with Pearl. It had been way too long since they had done any of those things.

Then, a thought hit him. Did Pearl still think he and Maya were dating?

_I hope not, _he thought. _I don't really want any more slaps in the face._

About fifteen minutes after it was supposed to arrive, Maya and Pearl's train chugged into the station. Shifting his weight to his other foot, Phoenix waited for the passengers to start to disembark. He tried to watch all of the doors at once, and by the time luggage-ridden passengers began to step out onto the platform, a large, hard knot had formed in his stomach, making him feel slightly nauseous.

There was one large advantage about Maya and Pearl coming on the early train. Even if there had been many, many more passengers, it still would have been incredibly easy to pick them out among the crowd. It wasn't too hard; both wore spirit medium costumes and magatamas around their necks, and even if they wore regular clothes, they were easily the most energetic amongst the otherwise-sleepy passengers.

Phoenix spotted the two within three minutes. Maya caught sight of him at the exact same second, and she gently set down a pet carrying case but threw her other luggage away and ran through the crowd toward him, absolutely beaming.

"Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!" she cried as she ran, and then she threw herself at him to give him a huge hug. Phoenix nearly toppled over – she'd gained weight and he had lost some – but managed to give her an awkward pat on the back. Then Pearl, who set her luggage down much more carefully than Maya had, was standing next to them, probably wanting to greet Phoenix but not wanting to interrupt this somewhat-awkward reunion.

"Hey, Maya, Pearls," Phoenix replied, waving at Pearl. Presently, Maya stepped back and examined him critically, looking him up and down. He gazed back, smiling slightly. Maya looked different. She was still small, and she still had the long black hair with the topknot, but she had gained some pounds and over her purple-sleeved spirit medium costume, she wore a grayish-black Master's robe. She kept the red and yellow Master's talisman in sight, and Phoenix gazed at it for a moment, remembering how he had found it nearly eight years ago, in the snow, and the picture that had been inside of it. And, when she stayed still and didn't talk, she had an air of refinement that she had been lacking in when they had last met.

_A refined Maya. . . heh, _Phoenix thought, his smile broadening. _Right. Just like there's a rich Gumshoe and a music-hating Klavier Gavin._

Pearl took advantage of this long pause in conversation and gave Phoenix a small, quick hug before retreating to go get their suitcases and bags.

Finally, Maya said, "Whoa, you've really let yourself go, haven't you, Nick? You look. . . kinda like a hobo."

He sighed and, unable to think of any other way to reply, shrugged. Then, Pearl reappeared, trying to carry all of the luggage by herself, including the pet carrying case.

"Pearly! Don't try to carry that all by yourself!" Maya insisted, grabbing the pet carrying case and several bags.

Pearl shook her head and protested, but Maya took about half of her younger cousin's load and handed Phoenix the cage, from which an indignant mew suddenly came.

Phoenix stared at it. "Is that–?"

"Yep, that's Phoenix," Maya replied, looking at the cage fondly as she shouldered two bags at once. "I couldn't let him stay back home."

". . ." Phoenix continued to stare at the cage that contained the small gray tabby he had allowed Maya to adopt about a week before his last case. "I thought you changed the name?" he muttered at last.

She shook her head. "No, I didn't." With one of her hands finally free, she reaccepted the pet cage and started murmuring, "It's okay, Phoenix, you'll be out of there soon."

Phoenix glanced behind him. "Since you were probably going to meet them anyway, I'd like you to meet a couple of people." He pointed at a nearby bench. "The guy sitting there and hiding behind a newspaper is Apollo Justice."

Apollo lowered the newspaper. "Trucy made me do it," he said with a sigh. Then he looked at Maya, and smiled. "Hi," he rasped.

Maya snapped her fingers. "Ah! So _you're_ Mr. Justice."

Then, Phoenix gestured toward the garbage can sitting next to the bench. "The girl trying to hide behind that and who thinks I've stood here for over an hour and haven't noticed her is my daughter, Trucy."

Trucy popped up from behind the garbage can with her hands on her hips. She opened her mouth to reply, but Pearl, who had glanced at the young magician for two seconds, proceeded to slap Phoenix across the face.

"Mr. Nick! You're filthy!" she cried, slapping him again.

"_Ow_! That _hurts_, Pearls! And what did I do?" Phoenix cried, trying to block the slaps. But it was harder now that Pearl was sixteen and only a head shorter than him, because it was much easier for her to hit him now than when she had been nine, and every time he_ did_ block a slap, she punched him in the arm. Hard.

"You have a daughter!" Pearl exclaimed loudly as Maya watched, apparently torn between laughing and stopping her cousin from pummeling her ex-boss. "What – about – Mystic – Maya?" She enunciated each word with a slap or a punch.

Maya decided to intervene here. "Pearly, Pearly, please calm down," she begged her little cousin as Phoenix turned away, looking for a Kleenex in his pocket to see if his nose was bleeding. "Trucy is Nick's _adopted_ daughter, okay? He's not married to someone else or anything. And I–"

Pearl turned to look at Phoenix. Whatever Maya had been about to say trailed off quietly as Pearl stared at him for a long moment. He had found a tissue and, sure enough, small traces of blood stained the white Kleenex. He turned back around to find her mouth having formed a comical-looking "o."

"Oops. I'm sorry, Mr. Nick," she apologized sincerely.

"It's my fault," Maya confessed. "I didn't tell her that Trucy was adopted."

Phoenix shook his head, covering his nose with the tissue. "S'okay," he mumbled.

Pearl and Trucy disappeared to go get a taxi, and after Phoenix shot a look at Apollo, the young attorney followed them, still holding his newspaper and looking as if he would like nothing better than to sleep. Cat!Phoenix meowed again, spurring Phoenix to say, "Do they even _allow_ cats at the Gatewater?"

Maya shrugged. "I don't see why they wouldn't. Phoenix wouldn't disturb anyone! Would you, kitty-kitty?" she stuck her fingers in through the mesh of the cage's door. The tabby batted at the finger playfully and purred.

"Well, they'll have people staying there that are allergic to cats. And besides, cats are noisy. They scratch things up. They–"

"That was your argument when I first _found_ Phoenix, Nick," replied Maya, smiling sweetly. "Who won that argument again?"

Phoenix sighed. "You did. But I think the manager of the hotel will be harder to convince than I am."

"Well, you'll defend me and Phoenix, Nick!" Maya said confidently. Then, seeing the smallest of sad smiles on Phoenix's face, she bit her lip. "Uh. . . sorry," she mumbled.

"Never mind," he replied, waving a hand dismissively, even though her comment stung a little.

Trucy appeared then, saying that they had managed to get a taxi, and Phoenix helped his ex-assistant carry the luggage out of the station and onto the sidewalk. Apollo had disappeared, presumably to get some sleep, and Maya seemed disappointed about this.

"You said he does Chords of Steel training, right?" she asked Phoenix as she closed the trunk of the taxi on their luggage. "That sounds awesome! And his hair looks so cool. It's spiky, like yours, only, you know, cooler."

". . ." Phoenix touched his light blue hat, then remembered he had better things to worry about than the coolness of his spiky hair, mainly making sure Maya didn't get charged for murder or get kidnapped or something.

Maya opened the taxi door. "Why do you wear that hat, anyway?" Then, she gasped, as if an idea had just hit her. "Did you go _bald_?"

"I'm not _that_ old!" Phoenix replied, insulted. "I'm only thirty-three!"

She shrugged. "Either way, do you want to go to our old usual place for lunch later?"

At that moment, Pearl appeared with Trucy from the station, for they had gone back to use the rest room. Hearing this, the two girls dropped what they were carrying and ran over to the pair, talking over each other in their anxiousness to get their points across.

"Oh! Mystic Maya! You're going out with Mr. Nick today?" Pearl cried excitedly. "I'll not–"

Then, Trucy's voice covered Pearl's. "Are you getting me a new Mommy, Daddy?" she asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, and she spoke like a young child asking what she would be getting for Christmas. "Are you?"

Phoenix held his face in his hands. Maybe he should have gone back to his apartment like Apollo had.

As Maya tried to convince Pearl they weren't going on a date and Trucy began to orally plan out a wedding, the taxi driver yelled, "Can we hurry up already?"

Grudgingly, Pearl got into the taxi and waved to Trucy and Phoenix as it drove off toward the Gatewater Hotel. Maya stuck her head out of the taxi and yelled, "See you at your place at lunch, Nick!" leaving the magician and the "hobo" (as Maya had called him) standing on the sidewalk. Phoenix silently turned and walked back to his apartment, and Trucy followed just as quietly, which surprised him. After a while, she stated simply, "I like Maya and Pearl."

He nodded and continued walking.

"Maya's really funny," Trucy continued, flicking a lock of her brown hair out of her face. "And Pearl is so nice."

He nodded again, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he walked. "They both are."

"Will Maya be my new Mommy?"

Phoenix laughed softly. Apparently, Trucy was convinced that he and Maya would marry, just like Pearl had been. "No, it's not like that. Maya's my friend."

Trucy took a few long steps and turned around so that she was walking backward and could face her adoptive father. "Really? Because Pearl said that Maya–"

"Pearl has _always_ thought that Maya and I were dating." He quickened his pace slightly. "But we never have, and we never will."

Trucy was quiet for a moment, but continued to walk backward, gnawing on her bottom lip before saying at last, "You seem upset, Daddy."

He gave her a small smile. "I'm not upset. I'm tired." Then, he overtook her and, calling over his shoulder, said, "Let's go back and get some sleep, okay?" _With Maya around, I'm going to need all the rest I can get, _he added in his mind. _You never can tell when she gets involved._

And, of course, he was absolutely right.

—_Later_—

At eleven-thirty, Phoenix was waiting for Maya and Pearl to come, staring dolefully at the money he could afford to spend on lunch between himself, the two mediums, Trucy, and Apollo, assuming the last two would be coming along, too. He only had five dollars, and even that was stretching it to a dangerous point. _I wish our old place was cheaper, _he thought, playing with the bills in his fingers. _Or that we could go to Eldoon's. But Maya would rather a cheeseburger than noodles, I think._

The door opened, and he looked round to find Maya and Pearl come in, both looking well-rested. Maybe they'd had a nap at the hotel. Or maybe they got up early every morning in Kurain and were used to it.

"Wow," Maya said, blinking as she looked around the room. "This is really different from the last time I was here." Then she found Trucy's spare top hat sitting on the dusty piano and perched it on her head. "Hey, Nick, do I look like a magician?" she asked, tipping her hat in a perfect imitation of his daughter.

At that moment, Trucy herself walked in. She caught sight of Pearl and ran to give her a hug. Phoenix watched as Pearl gave her a hug back. Apparently, they had hit it off well at the station, because they were acting as if they had known each other all their lives.

Still wearing the top hat, Maya ran over to the potted plant sitting in the corner. "Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarllllllllllieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she cried, in much the same fashion as she had when she had seen Phoenix at the station. "I missed you!"

"You know about Charlie?" Trucy asked, glancing over at the spirit medium, wide-eyed.

"Yep! He was my sister's originally. When I worked here, I watered him. He's a great plant to talk to. He's even better than Nick!" Maya had a reminiscent sort of look in her eyes.

_. . . A _plant_ is better to talk to than I am? _Phoenix thought disbelievingly.

Suddenly, Trucy noticed that her spare hat was on Maya's head. "You look a bit like a magician," she told her with a smile. "Can you do magic?"

"I can channel the spirits of the dead! Does that count?" Maya asked over her shoulder, smiling hopefully.

As if being told by the person she was talking to that they could channel spirits was a normal, daily occurrence, Trucy shrugged. "I don't know." Then, she asked, "Want to see a magic trick?"

Maya turned completely around now, clapped her hands together, and nodded. "Yes, please!" Then she looked sideways at Phoenix. "I'm jealous – you can watch all of these magic shows for free!"

Smiling proudly, he nodded. "She's a good magician. If this is the trick I think it is, you're going to like it. A lot."

Apollo walked into the room sleepily, carrying a sandwich that had just made in the kitchen. "What's happening now?" he asked, his voice sounding much better than it had this morning, though he only sounded half awake.

"Trucy's going to do a magic trick now, Mr. Justice!" Pearl explained happily, beaming.

He gave a start. "Trick?"

Suddenly, from beneath Trucy's cape, a seven-foot puppet made of wood unfolded itself and stood upright, sweeping her silk top hat off her head and perching it on its own. Pearl gave a small scream and tripped over backward. While Phoenix leapt forward to catch her before she fell and hurt herself, Maya was gazing at the puppet, evidently trying to figure out how she had done it.

"Cool, huh?" Trucy asked. "His name is Mr. Hat."

Maya grinned. "Hello, Mr. Hat!" Then she looked at Trucy. "How did you do it?"

Mr. Hat slid back under her cape. Trucy, reclaiming her hat and putting it back on her own head, replied with a smile, "Magicians never reveal their secrets!"

"Aw." Maya turned to Phoenix. "So, you ready to get some cheeseburgers?" she asked, switching gears quickly.

Phoenix glanced at the five dollars he had to split between three to five people. It was still lying on the table where he had left it. _Maybe for one person. _"I think," he replied aloud.

Maya's eyes flicked to the five dollar bill as well. "I'm paying," she insisted, patting the purse that she had slung on one shoulder.

_She's. . . paying? _Phoenix stared at his ex-assistant, bewildered. Usually, Maya made him pay for _everything_.

"Nick." Maya sounded dead serious. "I would have paid, even if you had more than five bucks to buy lunch for you and me. Besides, I owe you."

Phoenix opened his mouth to argue. Then, realizing he was going to get a free meal, he switched tactics quickly, "Only you and me?"

Maya slid up to him and whispered in his ear, "Pearly insisted that you and I have some alone time. I had to beg her to come here."

Both of them turned to look at Pearl and Trucy, who were sitting beside Charlie, talking to him energetically. Apollo was eating his sandwich, watching the two girls through half-closed eyes. Phoenix called over to them, "Trucy? Pearl? You sure you don't want to come?"

Pearl turned to face him and shook her head. "No! You and Mystic Maya go have lunch, Mr. Nick! I'll be fine here."

_Define "fine."_ "Trucy?" he prompted, gazing at his adopted daughter.

"No. I'll stay here with Pearl," Trucy responded cheerfully. Then she walked over and poked Apollo in the ribs. Hard. "Apollo can stay with us."

Apollo groaned softly. Whether it was from the poke or the prospect of staying with Trucy, Phoenix couldn't tell.

"Okay, then. Apollo, make sure they don't break anything or get into the pudding I bought yesterday." He turned to Trucy. "Trucy, make sure Apollo doesn't use that as an excuse to 'guard' the pudding. He has to wait for his paycheck." He turned to Pearl, leaving Apollo looking extremely indignant. "Pearl, make sure neither Trucy nor Apollo get into the kitchen and have some kind of mini-war for the pudding."

After assigning several more duties to the three of them, Phoenix and Maya left. As soon as they had left the building, Maya turned to him and enquired, giggling, "You pay your employees with pudding now?"

He shrugged. "Only Apollo. Trucy makes her own money."

"I can see why. That Mr. Hat trick was awesome! And defense attorneys never seem to get paid a lot anyway." She bit her lip. "So. . . what does he do with the pudding?"

"One, Grossberg was a defense attorney, and he's stinking rich," Phoenix pointed out. "And two, do I even have to answer that question?"

Maya nodded. "I know, I know. It's so obvious what he does with the pudding."

"Good. I was wondering if–"

"He sells it online." Maya hit herself on the forehead and continued walking. "That's so _obvious_! He probably makes lots of money. 'Pudding from the famous forging attorney!' Not that you actually _forged_ anything, but that's what people think. I bet it would sell like hot cakes!"

It was then that Maya noticed Phoenix had stopped about ten feet back, staring at her as if she were insane. "Something wrong?" she asked, walking back and waving a hand in front of his eyes. He turned his head to stare at her face.

"Were you kidding?" he asked.

Maya looked confused for the briefest of seconds. Then she grinned. "Of course I was!"

Phoenix rolled his eyes. "Sure you where," he replied sarcastically. They continued walking.

"I thought for a second that you were offended over me implying you forged that evidence," Maya murmured after they were a block away from their usual restaurant. "You know that I know that you didn't do it."

Phoenix slightly stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. "That's been over with for seven years," he told her gently.

She shook her head. "No. They finally caught the real forger, didn't they? It happened last month. It was all over the papers. All because of Apollo, wasn't it? Everyone in Kurain was talking about it, since you had such close ties there." She was silent for a moment. "It's too bad that they still won't give your badge back."

Normally, Phoenix would have steered the conversation away from this topic, but this was _Maya_. He'd talked to her about it before, shortly after he had adopted Trucy. And sometimes, on the phone, they discussed it briefly. She was the one person who was even close to understanding the pain caused by being toppled from a high, high throne. It had happened to her now deceased mother, and Maya had grown up seeing the destruction of her mother's grave mistake that wasn't even a mistake, though that had only been discovered fifteen years after it had happened.

"It is," he agreed softly. He would have said more, but Maya suddenly grabbed his arm, startling him slightly.

"We just passed the restaurant," she said, pointing toward a corner shop with the words "Walter's Burger Joint" written on the restaurant's large glass window. "Let's finish this conversation after I eat. I'm _starving_."

_Yep. Definitely same old, same old, _Phoenix thought as he allowed Maya to drag him through the shop's door, something that had happened many times, back when he had been a defense attorney.

And the same old thing was not a bad thing, not in the slightest.

* * *

**Bad ending, I know. Sorry. D8 Maya's pet cat, Phoenix, isn't my idea, as I said (or tried to) in the disclaimer. That was from the Phoenix Wright Files, and it was my favorite story in the whole book. So, I decided to put Cat!Phoenix in here, too.**

**Next chapter will mostly be in Apollo's POV. What Trucy and Pearl are thinking and talking about back at the Wright Anything Agency is something very, very important.**

**. . . Plus, I like writing about Trucy, Pearl, and Apollo. XD**


	3. Reunion

**Admit it, you all thought I'd forgotten about this, didn't you?**

**. . . Well, I actually did for a little while. XD Sorry for the late update. I'm even sorrier for the pathetic state of this chapter. I had writer's block, but I needed to finish this soon, and, um. . . yeah. (end fail)**

**lazyguy90: I think you might be psychic. Both Ema and Klavier are in this chapter, and yes, I'd decided this before your review. Weird. . . XD And a lot of old characters show up in this fic, for reasons you'll see in this chapter. -nods-**

**LoganEcholls: Thanks. :) I find I have trouble writing the characters from Apollo Justice, so I take encouragement from your review.**

**WritingPurple: Cat!Phoenix is awesome. -nods- I couldn't resist adding the Charlie thing in there; it stands to reason that Maya'd be happy that he's still around, really. :) I was kinda happy myself when I saw Charlie was still around in Apollo Justice. Which is weird, really, since he's just a plant. o_o**

* * *

**3. Reunion**

A half hour after Phoenix and Maya left, Apollo was getting suspicious.

He was sitting out in the kitchen, trying to read the newspaper. Trucy and Pearl had been in the young magician's room for the past thirty minutes, after telling Apollo sternly not to come in. It was silent except for the hum of the fridge behind him, and this worried him. Under normal circumstances, you could hear Trucy from her room as clearly as you could if she were standing right next to you, but he heard nothing.

Unnerved, Apollo set down the newspaper and went to check on them. He opened the door to Trucy's room and stuck his head inside to find Trucy lying on her bed, writing something on a piece of paper. Pearl was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her face screwed up in concentration as she said to Trucy, "Um, I can't remember."

"That's okay. We'll look in a--" Trucy, realizing that Apollo was there, clamped her mouth shut, gazing at him with reproach. Pearl turned to look and, catching sight of the young lawyer, gasped.

"What're you doing?" he asked suspiciously, opening the door wider so he could step inside. Leaning against the wall, he stared at Trucy, silently daring her to lie to him.

"N-N-Nothing," stammered Pearl, uncrossing her legs and standing up.

The bracelet that Apollo wore on his wrist suddenly tightened. Trucy sighed. "Don't lie to him," she told the spirit medium. "He can tell."

Pearl covered her hand with her mouth. "You have a magatama too, Mr. Justice?" she asked. Then her eyes widened. "You got a magatama from Mystic Maya, didn't you?"

Apollo saw her hands ball into fists. "No, no, no, I don't have a magatama!" he said quickly, taking a step backward. Pearl unballed her fists, but she still watched him suspiciously. ". . . What the hell's a magatama, anyway?"

Pearl reached for a nine-shaped bead hanging from a cord around her neck and held it up so Apollo could see it. "If you charge it with spiritual energy, you can see people's secrets," she explained. "You can tell when they lie, and you can break the Psyche-Locks that guard the secret."

He stared at her, uncomprehending what she had just told him. Trucy leaned forward, staring intently at the magatama, biting her lip.

"I think I've seen one of those before," she said slowly.

Pearl nodded. "Mr. Nick has one," she explained. "It was really Mystic Maya's."

Apollo decided to steer the conversation back on topic. "So, what _were_ you two doing?" he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

Trucy sighed. "We'll tell you as long as you promise not to tell Daddy."

"Or Mystic Maya," Pearl added.

Trucy was now giving him the same look he had given her not too long ago, the one that dared the other to lie. Apollo raised his right hand and said, "Fine. I promise not to tell Mr. Wright or Maya. Unless it's illegal, of course."

"It's not," Trucy assured him. She got up and handed him the piece of paper. He scanned it, raising an eyebrow at what he found.

"What exactly is this?" he asked.

"A list of phone numbers," Trucy explained. "It was Pearl's idea."

Apollo stared at her. "To make a list of phone numbers? That's what the phone book is for, you know."

"Anyway, these are all the numbers of Maya's and Daddy's old friends," Trucy continued. "We're going to call them all and invite them to the Gatewater. It'll be like a reunion for them!"

Apollo glanced at the list again. "Mr. Wright hasn't been in contact with any of them for seven years," he pointed out. "And their phone numbers may have changed. How do you know these are the right ones?"

"Mystic Maya still calls some of them. And the ones she doesn't call can be found in the phone book," Pearl told him, nodding.

"And Mr. Wright and Maya aren't supposed to know about this?"

Trucy and Pearl shook their heads. Apollo reread the list, shaking his head. "How're you going to convince them to come?" he inquired as he read. "A couple of them might be out of the country; why should they fly to America for this reunion?"

"Stop asking meaningless questions, Apollo," Trucy said with a grin.

"They're not meaningless," he retorted. "You just don't want to answer them."

"They'll come," Pearl assured him. "I know they will!"

Trucy poked him in the arm. "So, will you help?"

"Lemme guess; you need an adult to pay for everything, right?"

Trucy smiled at him ruefully. He took this for a yes and frowned. "You _did_say that it was being held at the Gatewater, right?"

Pearl and Trucy nodded.

"This is the same Gatewater Hotel that Pearl and Maya are staying in, right?"

Again, the two teenagers nodded.

"And this hotel is the most expensive one in town, isn't it?"

Both of them nodded again. Apollo could already see the little money he had saved up disappear.

"I have the money," Pearl cut in. Both Trucy and Apollo looked at her.

"What?" they asked in unison.

Pearl shifted from one foot to the other. "I have the money," she repeated. "Mystic Maya makes a lot of money doing spirit channelings because she is the Master of Kurain. And Mystic Maya gives me some. I have enough to pay for it."

"That's not necessary!" Apollo said hurriedly, then cursed himself for being a nice guy. "I can pay for it all by myself."

Trucy grinned. "Nice try, but that muscle in your cheek that twitches when you lie gave you away. How about both of you pay for half?"

"And what'll you chip in?" Apollo asked her, raising an eyebrow.

The smile disappeared from her face. She dug in her pockets and produced a quarter. Handing it to Apollo, she said, "There you go! Twenty-five cents."

Apollo looked at the quarter. Then he looked at Trucy. Then he looked at the quarter again.

"A very large help," he observed sarcastically.

"Mr. Justice?" Pearl was tugging on his sleeve. He turned to look at her pleading face. "Please, let me pay for it. It was my idea. I already called before we left Kurain, to reserve Viola Hall. I checked the price with them, and I have more than enough. I was going to pay for it since the beginning."

"Really?" Trucy looked confused. Evidently, Pearl hadn't informed her about this part of the plan.

Pearl nodded and stared up at Apollo with wide brown eyes. "Don't worry about it, Mr. Justice. Okay?"

Somehow, Apollo didn't think he could win this argument. He nodded reluctantly. "Okay." Then he thought, _It's a sad day where a certified lawyer can't even beat a sixteen-year-old in an argument._

Trucy attempted to push Apollo out the door. "Remember, don't tell Daddy or Maya," she reminded him. "I guess you won't have to help with this after all, so. . . bye."

Apollo didn't budge. He was looking at the list of guests, which he had kept in his hand during the whole conversation. At last, he said, still gazing at the paper, "You'll still need help. A couple of these guests are prosecutors, you know. Most prosecutors won't listen to a phone call from a sixteen- or fifteen-year-old."

"Which means. . .?" Trucy asked, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

"We'll have to call Ema," Apollo replied, still not looking up from the list. "She's a detective; she might know where they are, and what their phone numbers are. It's worth a shot."

"That makes sense," Pearl conceded.

Trucy nodded. "There's only one problem, though. Do we _know_ Ema's phone number?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . ." Apollo racked his brains. He couldn't think of anything, so he added, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." Then, finally, he shook his head. "No."

Trucy sighed, then went back to her bed. She lifted her pillow and threw it aside, revealing the phone book. Apollo stared at it as she picked it up and started leafing through the pages.

"You sleep with a phone book underneath your pillow?" he asked in a disbelieving voice.

Trucy shook her head. "Of course not. I hid it in here before Pearl came - she explained this all to me at the station, by the way - in case you saw me carrying the phone book to my room and wondered what I was up to."

"And look how well that plan turned out," he muttered to himself.

She ignored this. "She's probably not home, so we'll leave a message for her." Then, she added, "Found it."

Apollo took out his cell phone, checked the number in the phone book that Trucy was pointing at, and dialled it. The phone had rung twice when, to his surprise, he heard a click and a sneeze. "Ema Skye," a woman's voice said.

"Hey, Ema, it's Apollo. I have a question for you."

"If it's information about an investigation you want, I don't have it," she told him crossly. "I've been out sick for a couple of days. Go annoy Detective Gumshoe; he's in charge of any investigations going on."

"No, it's not about that!" Apollo said quickly before she could slam the receiver back in its cradle. "I want to know if you know Miles Edgeworth?"

Ema coughed. "The prosecutor? Not personally, no," she replied suspiciously. "Why? Are you facing him in court and want to know his tactics?"

Apollo gave a heavy, exasperated sigh. "Listen. I do _not_ have any cases right now. This call has _nothing_to do with court. I honestly want to know if you know Mr. Edgeworth's phone number."

"Well, you could have said that earlier," Ema said. Judging by the tone of her voice, if she had been here in the room, Apollo could tell he would have been hit by a Snackoo. "No, I don't know his phone number. Why?"

It took him about five minutes to explain the situation. After a pause, Ema finally told him, "Well, I know Edgeworth's in the country right now, but I've never worked on a case with him before. I've only met him a couple of times, actually, and that was a long time ago. So, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Do you know anyone who _can_ help?"

Ema muttered something that Apollo didn't catch.

"Could you repeat that?" he asked, sitting down on Trucy's bed.

"The glimmerous fop, Gavin. He might know." Apollo could hear her munching on some Snackoos through the phone. "I have his number somewhere on my desk from some trial a while back. Give me a second."

Apollo rested the phone between his ear and shoulder and started turning the bracelet on his arm as he waited for Ema to pick up the phone again. Evidently, "a second" really meant "five minutes," because it took that long for her to find the number and tell it to him. After writing the number down, he thanked her and hung up.

"So, did you get it?" Trucy asked the minute he hung up.

"No." He glanced at the piece of paper he'd written the number on, then punched it into the phone. It rang twice before someone on the other end picked it up.

"Prosecutor Klavier Gavin." The voice that answered was that of a young male, and his accent sounded distinctly German.

Apollo sighed. "Hey, Klavier. Listen, I have a question for you."

"Is that you, Herr Forehead?" Klavier interrupted.

He sighed again. Being called "Herr Forehead" was starting to get old. "Yes, it's me. Now, can I ask the question or what?"

"Ja," replied the rockstar-turned-prosecutor.

"Do you know Miles Edgeworth's phone number? Or anyone else who might know it?"

There was a couple of seconds of silence on the other end. At last, Klavier said, "I think I might. Why?"

"Long story short, there's a reunion of sorts that Edgeworth's being invited to. Except we don't know how to contact him."

"I see." Apollo could hear Klavier thumbing through pages on the other end of the line. "I have a question, Herr Forehead. Why didn't you just look in the phone book?"

Apollo stared blankly ahead at the wall in front of him. At last, he said, "Damn."

Klavier snorted, then gave him Edgeworth's number and hung up. Apollo sighed and pressed the "End" button on his cell phone. "I got it," he told the two girls in front of him.

"Yay!" Trucy plopped on the bed beside him as he dialled the number Klavier had given him and watched him wait for someone on the other end to pick up. Apollo bit his lip and squirmed slightly, because he had just realized that, in a few seconds, he would be speaking to Miles Edgeworth, _the _Miles Edgeworth, Mr. Wright's ex-rival and famous prosecutor. Well, famous to those who cared about court, anyway.

_Click!_

"Uh, hi," Apollo began without letting the other person speak first. "Is this Mr. Edgeworth? I'm Apollo Justice. . ."

The invitations had (finally) begun.

* * *

**I decided not to continue the conversation Maya and Phoenix were having in this chapter. I don't think I could have written it; I was stretching it just by writing this. It'll be in the next chapter, though. -nods-**

**So, now we know that there will be a reunion, and that Edgeworth is on the invite list. Any guesses to who else may show up will be appreciated. :) I already have the main ones that will be there picked out, but if someone comes up with a person that I hadn't thought of yet, I might add them in. It depends, though.**


	4. The Card

**I lost the inspiration to write Phoenix Wright fanfiction for a while there. Then I found it. Is this a good or bad thing?**

**princessphilomena: I figure Diego would probably still be in jail. I used to think that any type of murder, in the game at least, would result in the murderer going to death row. I'm not sure if that's the case, though, since his wasn't premediated. -is very clueless about that kind of thing- I hadn't actually thought of inviting the judge, to be honest. That's an awesome idea. 8D**

**Leah Carthur: Gumshoe and Maggey getting married = 8DDDDD. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to invite Adrian. Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no. You'll just have to wait to find out, I guess. :)**

**leeny: Maya's and Phoenix's reactions to this will be interesting. That's all I'm gonna say on the subject. :)**

**KAsurin: The first two words of your review made me think I was gonna get harsh concrit. XD Anyway, I hope you keep on enjoying this fic!**

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**4. The Card**

Phoenix sat down in one of the booths by the window, looking around the restaurant reminiscently. He had stopped coming here on a regular basis a couple of years ago, but it still looked the same as the last time he had been here. In fact, it still looked the same as it had when he had first come here, almost nine years ago. The gray-and-red tiled floor still looked as scruffy as ever, the large windows that faced out onto the street were still as clean as though they had been washed ten minutes ago, and the empty tables were scattered throughout the room in their usual disorganized way. The counter behind which the staff worked ran the length of the wall nearest the door, and the smell of hamburgers wafted toward him from the kitchen behind it. A scowling boy in his late teens, the lone cashier, shoved a tray with two burgers and two drinks at Maya, who accepted it, turned around, caught sight of him, and hurried over to him, beaming.

"Hey, you got our old booth! Good work!" she said, sliding into the seat opposite him and setting the tray down on the table. She grabbed her burger and unwrapped it as quickly as she could, then took a huge bite. She rolled her eyes in delight, then set it down and started to chew.

"Hungry?" he asked dryly, unwrapping his own burger.

She swallowed, then nodded. "That and I haven't had a cheeseburger in a long time. It's not something that they make a lot in Kurain, you see." She made a face and took another bite. "They say it's not very dignified for the Master to be eating cheeseburgers every day. Or ever. And I never have a lot of time to come into the city to buy one." She looked around the room, a thoughtful smile on her face. "I've missed coming here," she said softly, gesturing around the room with one hand. "I haven't been here in seven years."

"Seven years?" How he was beginning to hate that phrase. . .

She nodded. "Yeah. That last time, with you, after that trial. After you adopted Trucy and I came to visit you. Trucy was in school when I arrived, and it was lunchtime, so we came here. You remember, right?"

He bit his lip. Yes, indeed, he remembered. How couldn't he? It was the last time he'd seen her, or thought he would ever see her. Every word, every detail, had been burned into his mind. It was one of those times that no person could ever forget, no matter how hard they tried. And even as those thoughts ran through his mind, the memory was beginning to rise to the surface, the memory of the last time he had sat in this booth across from Maya. . .

—_Seven Years Ago_—

Seven years ago, the restaurant had been the exact same. Scruffy tiles, empty tables, scowling teenagers working behind the counter, the smell of hamburgers cooking, it was all the same. But Phoenix hardly noticed anything; he was holding his head in his hands, staring at the top of the table, his eyes half-closed as he struggled to stay awake. All his senses were deadened from lack of sleep and lack of interest; it was almost as if he was an empty shell, unable to see or think or feel anything.

There was the sound of footsteps coming in his direction. He did not look up, not even when he felt the table shake slightly as something was plopped down in front of him, nor when someone sat down in the seat across from him.

"I've got the food, Nick." Maya sounded unusually subdued. The vague thought flitted through his mind that she was holding back her normal cheeriness for his sake, but then he dismissed it. The thought was uninteresting. The food that she had bought for him was uninteresting. _Everything_ was uninteresting to him.

He felt something gently brush his forearm. It felt like a small bottle. "I even bought you some grape juice on the way here. Please, Nick, take it." Her voice was pleading, almost as if she couldn't bear to see him like this.

With a sigh, he lowered his hands and took the bottle, screwing the cap off and taking a sip. As he lifted the bottle, he glanced at Maya; her eyes were wide with sympathy as she watched him, and her usual smile was replaced with slight frown. He put the bottle down and, resisting the temptation to bury his face in his hands again, he shoved the tray toward her. "I'm not hungry," he told her. "You eat."

She grudgingly took her own cheeseburger, but did not unwrap it. Instead, she said, "Nick, I can tell this is killing you."

"No, I'm fine," he said automatically, but there was no real feeling behind his words, and she knew it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier," Maya apologized, ignoring his words. "The elders wouldn't let me. They've been making me train every single day, from early morning to late at night, and they won't let me out of their sights because they don't want me to talk to you. I had to get Pearly to distract them while I snuck away to the train station."

Phoenix bit his lip at the mention of Maya's young cousin, a sudden panic flooding through him. "Does she think I–?"

Maya placed her right hand on Phoenix's arm gently. "Relax," she told him. "You should have heard Pearly when we heard. 'Mr. Nick would _never_ do a thing like that! How can those mean court people accuse him?' Oh, that reminds me." She reached into her pocket and extracted a crumpled envelope. "Pearly wanted me to give you this."

Phoenix accepted it and slit it open, not really noticing what he was doing. He slid out a homemade card, on the front of which was taped a picture of Maya, Pearl, and himself, standing inside Viola Hall at the Gatewater Hotel. Around the picture, Pearl had drawn magatamas and hearts. He opened the card and read the message inside.

_Dear Mr. Nick,_

_I'm sorry I couldn't come. I really, really wanted to, but Mystic Maya said that you'll be very sad and I have to wait for a while to see you, so I decided to make this for you instead. I hope you like it._

_I know you didn't fake the evidence. Mystic Maya knows, too. Both of us will always be your friends, no matter what._

_Love,_

_Pearls_

Phoenix felt his eyes water and blinked rapidly to keep the tears in his eyes. Despite his efforts, one leaked out the corner of his eye and slid down his cheek.

"Nick? Are you crying?" Maya sounded concerned.

He wiped away the tear. "Sorry," he said in a slightly unsteady voice. "It's just, that last line. . ."

She glanced at the card and nodded. "It's true," she told him. "Everyone else might deny ever knowing you, but Pearly and I won't." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Every time I stopped believing in myself, you were the one who kept trusting and believing in me. So now, it's my turn to pay back the favour."

Another tear leaked out the corner of his eye. He sighed and wiped that away, too. "Thanks," he told her.

"No problem." She reached for a napkin lying on the tray and handed to him. "Now, let's stop talking about this, shall we? Otherwise, you'll be blubbering like a baby in five minutes," she added with a grin.

He placed the card beside him on the bench. "What should we talk about, then?"

"How about what you're going to do next?" she suggested. "Any plans for the future?"

Phoenix shook his head. Slowly, the deadened feeling that he had had ever since his last trial was beginning to fade, and he began to feel a little more like an actual person. "My adopted daughter, Trucy, wants to help pay for bills and everything. She's a magician-in-training, apparently. But I don't know what to do."

They talked for a while longer, steering clear of directly talking about the forged evidence, and eventually finished their lunch. He glanced casually at his watch as Maya talked about how strict the training the elders put her through was and gave a start. "Trucy's getting home from school in half an hour," he said, leaping to his feet.

Maya stood up abruptly as well. "Let's go," she said, sliding out between the table and the seat and leading the way to the door. "I can't wait to meet Trucy. She sounds so adorable!"

Phoenix had a hand on the door when he realized he had forgotten to bring the card along. He hurried back to their booth and saw it lying on the seat; he grabbed it and slid it into his pocket, then left the restaurant, closing the door behind him.

—_Present Day_—

"That was so long ago. . ." Maya's words brought him back to the present with a jolt. "You seemed so different then, too. It was like your spirit had been crushed or sucked out of you. You didn't seem like yourself." She glanced at him and added, "You _still_ don't seem like yourself. You're more like a hobo now than Phoenix Wright, ace attorney, striking fear into the hearts of villains everywhere."

"That's because I _am_, as you so kindly put it, a hobo," he reminded her. "I'm no longer an ace attorney, nor do I strike fear into the heart of anybody."

She shrugged. "You did a pretty good job on Kristoph Gavin," she pointed out. "I'm glad that your plan finally worked, whatever your plan was."

Phoenix replied, "That's different. It was Apollo who convicted Gavin, remember?"

"True, Apollo was the attorney who showed Gavin's true colours," Maya conceded. "But who was the one who gave him the opportunity? Who was the one who picked the case and the attorney? Who was the one who snuck into Gavin's cell and caught the contents of that envelope on camera? Who did all the research? You, Nick. You convicted Gavin through Apollo."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure I did," he replied. "Sure I did."

"By the way, Gavin's little brother was the prosecutor in that case, wasn't he? Klavier?" Maya asked casually.

"Yeah. The rock star."

She nodded. "Yeah, him. Imagine having a psycho like that for an older brother."

Phoenix shrugged. "I wouldn't know what it would be like. I was never misfortunate enough to have a brother or sister."

Maya's eyes took on a vacant look. "Having siblings isn't all that bad, sometimes. Sis was good to me."

Phoenix remembered Maya's older sister, Mia Fey, who had also been his mentor. Mia had had to care for her little sister after their mother had disappeared when Maya was two years old. "Yeah, well, your case was. . . different." He picked at the bun of his hamburger, thinking about Mia. She had been killed nine years ago, but Maya, being a spirit medium, had the power to channel Mia's soul. This had proved useful when he had been an attorney and in desperate need of help trying to crack a particularly difficult witness, but he had not seen Mia since one of his last trials.

She nodded, the vacant look in her eyes disappearing slowly. "I guess it was."

They continued to talk for a while about harmless, meaningless things, almost as if they had been transported back seven years, when coming here to eat lunch together and talking with each other was part of the daily schedule. But there was suddenly a sort of awkwardness between them, he noticed, an awkwardness that he couldn't ignore. Maya seemed undeterred, but he felt that she sensed it, too. The maddening thing was, though, that he couldn't tell if he was the reason for the awkwardness or if it was Maya. Perhaps it was both of them. They hadn't really had any alone face-to-face time this morning, and the only times they had talked since that day when Maya had delivered Pearl's card was on the phone. Talking to someone on the phone, however, was never as good as talking to someone in person. Maybe it was that they just weren't used to seeing each other like this, or they were both being overly-sensitive around each other, unsure how much the other had changed and making safe small talk until they could gauge it.

Maya glanced at the dingy clock on the opposite wall about an hour after they had arrived. "I guess we should get going, shouldn't we?" she said reluctantly, standing up and setting her garbage on the tray to throw out.

"Yeah," he added, standing up as well. "You'll be going back to the hotel after you pick up Pearls, then?"

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I suppose I will." Then she looked up and bit her lip, a thought evidently having just struck her. "I wonder if anyone found Phoenix yet."

"If they did, you are _not_ dumping him at my place," Phoenix told her sternly, crossing his ams over his chest.

She smiled at him, tossed out their trash, and came back, still wearing that same broad smile on her face. "Now, why would I do a thing like that?" she asked innocently.

"Because you're, I dunno, _Maya_," he replied sarcastically, leading the way out the door.

She sighed and rolled her eyes, following him out onto the sidewalk. "Don't worry, Nick. If they _do_ find him, I'm not going to leave Phoenix with you. You'd probably forget to feed him or something."

"I'm not _that_ bad," he said defensively.

"Either way, I _promise_ not to leave him with you," Maya replied seriously.

_Then why have I got a funny feeling that tomorrow, I'm going to get a phone call from you telling me that someone noticed him and I have to get over to the Gatewater and take him back home?_

"And, of course, _when _they do find him, you'll conveniently forget about this conversation, right?" he asked her.

She stuck her tongue out at him for a second. "Of course I won't. _If_ they find him, _you_, Phoenix Wright, will _not_ be responsible for the care of _my_ cat, Phoenix. I'll even sign a contract, if you want."

Slightly taken aback by her seriousness, Phoenix shook his head. "No, it's okay. You don't need to sign a contract. But you're still not allowed to give him to me to take care of."

"Of course not," Maya said innocently. Something about the tone of her voice told Phoenix he was missing something, but he decided not to address the issue further.

They continued to talk as they walked back to the Wright Anything Agency, some of the awkwardness between them evaporating slightly. When they stopped outside the door of the agency, they could hear Apollo's voice. He seemed to be talking on the phone; what about, they couldn't tell, since he was talking too quietly. Phoenix opened the door to find Trucy and Pearl sitting cross-legged on the floor, writing on a piece of paper. Trucy looked up, caught sight of her father and Maya in the doorway, and snatched the paper away. Apollo glanced over in their direction, mumbled a hurried, "Gotta go, bye," and hung up the phone.

"Hey, Pearly! Time to go!" Maya pushed past Phoenix gently to stand beside her cousin.

"How was your date with Mr. Nick?" Pearl asked eagerly, standing up quickly.

Maya's face went red. "It wasn't a _date_, Pearly!" she insisted. Still red in the face, she turned around and led the way out the door. "See you tomorrow, Nick!" she called over her shoulder. Pearl followed her and closed the door behind her, and as the sound of their footsteps receded, Trucy looked up at Phoenix, her face all smiles.

"How was your date with Maya, Daddy?" she asked, clasping her hands and resting them on her lap.

Phoenix laughed softly. "It wasn't a date, Trucy," he told her.

"Pearl said it was," Trucy responded stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest.

"Remember what I told you earlier? Pearls has always thought Maya and I were going to get married," Phoenix reminded her. Then he glanced toward Apollo, whose eyes kept flicking guiltily toward the phone. "Who was that?" he asked, his voice expressionless.

"Wrong number," Apollo replied a little too quickly. Phoenix glanced at Trucy, wordlessly asking her if he was giving off a liar's sign. She shook her head.

"Alright, then. I guess it doesn't matter." He looked in the direction of his bedroom. "I think I'll go have a nap."

"Bye, Daddy!" Trucy said, waving to him.

He lifted his hand in acknowledgement and picked his way across the room to the door leading to his room. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and drifted over to his bedside table. _In the top drawer, _he thought, reaching for the right knob. _In the top drawer, near the bottom._

He opened the drawer and started digging through its contents. Most of it was junk that seemed to naturally build up in bedside table drawers; a flashlight, a few photographs taken years ago, a card with a white back (which he kept face-down), and notebooks full of notes of the data he had collected over the past few years. At the very bottom was a homemade card, beginning to yellow with age, with a picture of an eight-year-old Pearl, a younger, more childish Maya, and himself, a happy-go-lucky defence lawyer who had just lost his first case, and had never felt better. The picture and the magatamas and hearts around it were fading a little, but that was no justifiable reason to throw it out.

It had been in his bedside table drawer for seven years, something that no one would expect the Forgin' Attorney (as the media had so kindly nicknamed him) to keep so close at hand. It was something that mystified even he, the one who hadn't thrown it out, who wouldn't even _think_ of throwing it out until, during those long nights when he felt as if he would never win against the one who really forged the evidence, when he felt as if the only person he had in the world was Trucy, he would take it out and find his will to find the person who had destroyed him renewed, felt as if there were people who believed he was innocent and always would believe it.

All because of a nine-year-old's clumsily-made homemade card.

* * *

**Gah. Ending sucked. Sorry. -_-**

**Within the next few chapters, the plans for the reunion (except a full invite list) will take shape, plus there'll start to be flashbacks taking place not only after Phoenix lost his badge, but in the second and third games. (I love flashbacks a little too much, methinks. XD) Mostly, the flashbacks will be building up to what happens at the reunion. . . the details to which I'm not going to disclose. . . since I really, really want it to be a surprise. :)**


	5. Engagement

**After not updating in, like, forever, I have finally completed this chapter. :) I swear, I **_**never**_** want to go through the hell that is severe writer's block ever again.**

**And now, on to the review replies;**

**loveyourbiggestfan: I say parts of the chapters I write suck every time. And then the reviewers are always like, "Are you crazy? That was awesome!" So I should probably shut up about it? XD**

**Fireblast123: Ron DeLite coming in as MaskDeMasque? That would be pretty funny. 'Cept he'd need something to steal, of course. XD And Iris and Maya trying to get Phoenix's attention would be entertaining. . . and probably painful, if Pearl saw him talking to Iris and not to Maya. . .**

**Disturbo: Your review made my ego swell three sizes. XD**

**princessphilomena: Yay, tears! :) I'm sorry. I just like it when people cry at those parts, and not because the chapter itself sucked. XD As for the death penalty I'm from Canada too, and we don't use it anymore, so I honestly have no clue how it works. -smiles sheepishly-**

**Now, on the issue of whether or not Diego/Godot will be appearing at the reunion, I have come to two decisions. The first is whether or not he will show up. The second is that I am not telling you, even though the beginning of the reunion is only a couple of chapters away, simply because I hate spoiling even little bits of the story for the readers. Don'thateme?**

**And now, for the fifth chapter. . .**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Engagement**

The next day was the start of Maya's lectures at the Gatewater. Pearl, whose presence wasn't required, showed up on Phoenix's doorstep bright and early, her face all smiles as she carried a bundle of gray tabby fur into the room.

". . . Is that the cat?" Phoenix asked, stepping aside to let her through. "Maya's cat?"

Pearl cradled the cat in her arms, gazing at Phoenix with wide, pleading eyes. "Mystic Maya was going to leave when he got past her and into the hall. One of the maids saw him, Mr. Nick. Mystic Maya told me to–"

Phoenix sighed and shook his head. "I _told_ Maya she wasn't allowed to leave him at my place," he informed Pearl. "Sorry, Pearls, but I just don't have the time or money to be looking after a cat." He thought for a second, then added, "Well, I have the time, just not the money."

Pearl nodded. "Mystic Maya said you would say that," she replied, scratching the cat behind his ears. "That's why she told me to leave him with Mr. Justice. Only. . . I don't know where Mr. Justice lives."

Phoenix stared at her for a moment. "Oh," was all he said.

Trucy bounded into the room just then, wide awake and fully-dressed in her regular blue cape and silk top hat. He had been awake for only fifteen minutes, but still, he had not realized that she was up as well. She caught sight of Phoenix the cat and rushed over to him, crying, "Awww!"

"Trucy can show you where Apollo lives," Phoenix told her, trying not to look at Maya's cat, knowing that, if he did, he would end up caving in and allowing him to stay here. "It's not very far from here." He decided against asking why Trucy was awake so early, deciding that it didn't exactly matter. "What time does Maya's lecture end?"

Pearl bit her lip as she tried to remember Maya's schedule. "Well, Mystic Maya has lectures all this morning, but she also has a demonstration on how to charge a magatama with spiritual energy this afternoon. I think she's finished at two."

He nodded to himself. "So, you'll be coming back here after you drop off the cat with Apollo, or will you stay over there?"

Trucy answered instead of Pearl this time. "We'll stay over there, Daddy. Have fun!" She led the way out the door quickly, Pearl following her, looking slightly taken aback. Phoenix shook his head and closed the door, then went back to his bedroom with the sole intent of catching up some more on his sleep.

—_Apollo Justice_—

Apollo was, surprisingly, awake when Pearl and Trucy knocked on his apartment door. He had just finished the last of his calls to the people on the invitation list, and felt quite pleased with himself as he checked off the person he had just called when he heard someone's fist pound on the door and the mew of a cat.

"Who's that?" he asked as he stood up from the kitchen table, hurrying toward the door. Before he could reach it, he heard the lock click, and Trucy was opening the door, grinning from ear-to-ear. Behind her was Pearl, carrying Maya's cat, Phoenix. She set him down and looked around the apartment critically, taking in the general mess of the kitchen/living room area.

"Say hi to your new roommate, Apollo!" Trucy said, gesturing toward Phoenix the cat.

". . . Um, Trucy?" Apollo was staring at Phoenix, who was sniffing a table leg. "Why is Maya's cat in _my_ apartment?"

"One of the maids saw Phoenix and Mystic Maya isn't allowed to keep him there anymore," Pearl explained.

Trucy nodded. "So you have to keep him until they leave," she finished.

Apollo stared at Phoenix a few seconds longer, then looked up at Trucy. "Why can't _you_ keep him?" he asked.

"Mystic Maya promised Mr. Nick she wouldn't leave Phoenix with him," Pearl replied. Her eyes were wide and pleading. "Please, Mr. Justice?"

He almost refused. Almost. He opened his mouth, ready to say, "No. I can't afford it, and I'm not that fond of cats." If it had been Trucy who had asked him, he would have said it, too. But Pearl had this sad look on her face, the kind that you'd have to be heartless to say no to.

"I can try to stick it out, I guess," he replied instead before he could stop himself. "And you don't have to call me Mr. Justice. Call me Apollo."

Pearl bit her lip. "Um. . . okay, Mr. Apollo."

_. . . Well, we made _some_ progress, _he thought to himself. "Is he trained for a litter box?" he asked Pearl, glancing nervously at Phoenix, who had curled up beneath the table and was watching them with slightly narrowed eyes.

She nodded. "He prefers going outside, though."

_I'll have to buy one for him, then. And I'll have to buy a food and water dish. And some food for him, of course, and. . . _Apollo could see some of his meager savings disappear as he thought about it.

Trucy had drifted over to the table he had been sitting at a few minutes ago, reading the invitation list. "You already called everyone?" she asked, surprised.

Apollo looked over at her and nodded. "Yeah. And I'm pretty surprised that they all agreed to come. Some of them are pretty famous, and, well, Mr. Wright _was_ widely known as the Forgin' Attorney for a while back. . ."

Pearl glowered at him, pushing back her sleeve threateningly. "Mr. Nick didn't forge _anything_!" she told him sternly.

"Of course he didn't!" Apollo replied, taken aback by her sudden change in demeanor. "I was the one who proved that!"

Pearl stared at him blankly for a few seconds. Then a look of understanding unfolded on her face. "Oh! I remember! That case last month, the one that made Mystic Maya skip around Fey Manor and sing, 'Yes, he's innocent!' a lot."

"Didn't she always think that Mr. Wright was innocent, though?" he asked her, confused.

She nodded. "Yes, but the elders back in Kurain Village didn't. That's why she could only visit Mr. Nick once, years ago. But, now that he's innocent, they let her visit him!"

_. . . I have a feeling that, even if I hadn't been able to prove his innocence and the elders still wanted her to stay away from Wright, she'd have visited him anyway, _he thought. Aloud, he said, "Well, that's, um, good."

His words were followed by a long, awkward silence. Trucy watched Phoenix the cat explore his new home, while Pearl began to tidy up the kitchen, evidently deciding that it needed to be cleaned. Apollo watched her for a few minutes, until a question popped into his head. "Hey, can I ask you something, Pearl?"

Pearl looked up from the table that she was clearing off. "Yes, Mr. Apollo?"

"Why are you having this reunion, anyway?" He sat down on a chair, resting his elbows on part of the junk-free table. "I think Mr. Wright and Maya are fine just hanging out with each other. Why invite everyone they know?"

Pearl stared at him as if he were insane. "Because they'll be getting engaged, of course!"

Apollo returned her look. ". . . _What_?!"

"Mr. Nick and Mystic Maya have been in love for _years_," she informed him, her face sincere. "They wanted to get married, but Mr. Nick losing his badge made the elders hate him, so she couldn't. But now that it's all better, she can marry him now! I think they'll announce their engagement at the reunion."

"And did Maya tell you all this?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Pearl never missed a beat. "No, but she told me she has feelings for Mr. Nick, and I think he feels the same way!"

"Pearl, I don't think–" Apollo began, but he saw Pearl push back her sleeve, and changed tactic at top speed, "Um, do you have any other kind of evidence that proves it?"

Pearl touched the magatama that hung from a chord around her neck. "Mystic Maya gave Mr. Nick her magatama to hold on to," she said, her voice matter-of-fact. "Mr. Nick has defended Mystic Maya twice, even though everyone believed she was the bad person. Then Mystic Maya was the one who helped Mr. Nick after his badge was taken away. And you notice how much time they're spending alone together? On _dates_?"

Apollo opened his mouth to point out that, after not seeing a friend for seven years, anyone would want to spend time alone with that friend, but he didn't particularly want a nosebleed, so he closed it again. Trucy, who had been silent for several moments, piped up, "And Daddy hasn't been acting like his usual self lately."

"Huh?" Apollo asked, turning to look at her, one eyebrow raised.

She shrugged. "Daddy seems to be happier ever since Maya came back. He just seems to have a new personality. Maybe Maya's bringing that part of him back?"

Pearl beamed, pleased to have someone taking her side. "See? See? They're in love!" she cried loudly.

Apollo shushed her. "Okay, okay, maybe they are in love," he conceded. "But don't get your hopes up, all right?"

Pearl glared silently at him. He quailed beneath her gaze. Trucy giggled at him. He tried glaring at her the same way Pearl was glaring at him, but that only made her laugh harder. Sighing, he turned back to Pearl. "Just. . . just don't, you know, take the microphone halfway-through the reunion and announce their marriage, okay?" He stood up and stretched. "I'm going to pick up some food for the cat. Don't trash anything, Trucy." He left the apartment, closing the door behind him.

The angry look on Pearl's face, to be replaced with one of thoughtfulness. To Trucy, she said "That's not a bad idea. The announcement." Then she frowned. "But Mr. Justice said not to."

Trucy waved a gloved hand dismissively. "Aw, Apollo's no fun. I think you should do it, anyway."

Pearl looked uneasy. "I don't know. . ."

"Don't worry about it!" Trucy sat down at the table, pulling the list of people to invite toward her and flipping it over to the blank side. Taking the pen, she added, "I'll help you write what you'll say, okay?"

"Um. . . sure, okay!" Pearl sat down beside Trucy and, together, they began writing her speech.

—_Phoenix Wright_—

Phoenix arrived at the Gatewater at a quarter to two, and, deciding against finding Maya's conference room, waited for her in the lobby, his hands in his pockets as he tried to look as at ease as possible. The woman behind the check-in desk was watching him suspiciously, and he had the feeling that she was all for kicking him out, except she was talking to someone on the phone. He didn't blame her; people who looked like hobos loitering in five-star hotel lobbies were generally frowned upon by employees.

A few minutes after his arrival, the woman hung up the phone and walked over to him, trying and failing to look pleasant. "Can I help you, sir?" she asked, sounding as if helping him was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

"Oh, I'm just waiting for a friend," he said in a friendly voice. "She should be out in a few minutes."

"Well, could you wait outside, please? We don't encourage people like–" she stopped, but Phoenix had the feeling that she had been about to say, "like you."

He shrugged, smiling. "Like me? I'm sorry, Miss, but I think I'd prefer waiting in here, unless you could direct me to the lecture Maya Fey's giving right now?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes. The spirit medium conference." She pointed at the ceiling. "Second floor, first door on the left." She went back behind the desk, and continued watching him as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, a long hallway with yellow walls lined by doors and a rich red carpet rolled down the middle.

The first door on the left was open; curious, he looked inside. It was a small room, with the same coloured walls and carpet as the hall outside. Tables, covered with white table cloths, were scattered all over the place, with five or six people sitting at each. All attention was focused on the front of the room, where Maya was standing, holding a glowing green magatama in her right hand so that everyone in the room could see.

"–and if someone lies, locks and chains will appear. Depending on how much the person wants to hide their secret, their will be a certain number of locks, and the harder it is to break them," she was confidently explaining to her audience. "Any more questions?"

No one raised their hand. A white-haired, wrinkled man sitting in the back of the room stood up. Phoenix guessed him to be the professor who had arranged the lectures for his occult students. "Thank you, Ms. Fey," he said in a wavering voice, beginning to clap. The others joined in, and, flustered, Maya grinned at them.

"Thank you, everybody," she said happily, pocketing the magatama she held. "Remember, the next session is two days from now, here at ten o'clock."

As students began to stand up and leave, Phoenix slipped into the room. Several stared at him as he walked by; others ignored him on purpose, brushing past him into the hall. Maya bounced over to him, grinning. "Hey, Nick!" she said, clapping her hands tomorrow. "How are you? I didn't expect you to come so soon!"

"I'm the same as I was yesterday; tired," he told her. "How were the lectures today?"

"They were great! They were a lot more interested than I thought they'd be." She yawned. "Still, I'll be glad for the two-day rest before I have to talk again."

"You're not the only person speaking here?" Phoenix asked, a bit surprised.

Maya shook her head, looking exasperated, as if the answer to his question was the most obvious in the world. "Nope. They have other spirit mediums who practice other techniques here, too. I think there's four or five other mediums here, besides me. In two days, we start demonstrating the differences between each, and then I have the next few days to myself." Then she smiled. "So, what's up with you?"

Phoenix shrugged, pulling up two chairs. He pushed one toward Maya and sat down in the other, his elbows on his knees as he told her, "I think Pearls and Trucy are up to something."

She grinned, plopping down into her chair. "I had a feeling they might be. Pearly said she was going to spend the day with Trucy, but when I asked her what they were going to do, she ignored me."

"That's not very Pearls-like," Phoenix agreed. "As for Trucy, she's always up to something or other, and I think they may have roped Apollo into it, too, whatever it is. Poor guy."

Maya laughed. "Poor Apollo. But still, I wonder what they're up to that they don't want us to know about?"

He shrugged again. "Well, Trucy thinks that you and I are dating, like Pearls does. Do you think that might be it?"

Was it just him, or did the laughter in Maya's eyes waver for just a second? He blinked, but her face was all smiles again. "Probably." Her eyes slid to the ground. "I wish Pearly would just. . . let it rest, you know? It was kind of cute when she was younger, but now, she should know. . ." Her voice trailed off, as if she had lost her train of thought. Then she shook her head and stood up. "Hey, let me just go back to my room and get something, all right? Then we can go somewhere. Wait for me in the lobby?"

"Sure, if I don't get kicked out before you come down," Phoenix replied with a snort, standing up as well. "See you in a few minutes." He watched Maya leave the room first, thinking, _What was she going to say a minute ago? That we wouldn't go out together? Or something else?_

After a moment of silent debate with himself, he decided that it probably didn't matter, and left the conference room, closing the door behind him on his way out.

* * *

**If this chapter seems a bit. . . rushed, I apologize. I just really, really wanted to get it over with so I could get to the parts I've been itching to write since I first thought of this fic, and I want to get as much of it done as possible (finishing it would be great, but I'm not that delusional) before the end of June, when I leave for a six-week trip that will probably not leave me much time to write and update.**

**As ever, reviews and concrit are appreciated. :)**


	6. Battle Plan

**I know what you're thinking. "Wait, what? Did she just update in less than a week? Who is this person and what have they done with Smart Aleckette?" But, if I didn't update quickly, I would feel guilty. Y'know why?**

**Thirteen reviews. That's how many I received after I last updated, the first ten having appeared in my inbox the morning I put up the last chapter. You guys rock. Seriously. 8D**

**Disturbo: Godot/Diego's one of my favourite characters, too. :) And, as for Edgeworth, have no fear – I have no intent on pairing him up with anybody. -nod-**

**MorenoX25: I can't wait to write the reactions to the announcement, to be honest. It's going to be **_**fun**_**!**

**Amanda Hiromu: Thanks for the reviews, especially the one about how Capcom should make it canon, but I don't really think it's **_**that**_** good. :)**

**BlueRaider: Trucy, Trucy, Trucy. . . just wait 'til you see what she does this chapter to poor Apollo. XD**

**sonicandlink: Apollo won't be. . . I'm going to stop there, actually. You'll find out by the end of the chapter what happens to him. -smirks-**

**Fireblast123: Actually, Adrian works for Lordly Tailor, the department store in the third game. I also have a little, um, "scene" planned between Trucy and one of the other people you mentioned during the reunion. . . XDD**

**So, this chapter takes place two days after the last one, the day of the reunion. We're getting close to the end of the fic. . . scary thought, eh? And now, I'll end this author's note and you can read chapter six. :)**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

**Battle Plan**

Trucy paced up and down Apollo's apartment, holding a black magic wand with a white tip, beating it against her palm to the beat of a Gavinner's song and checking her watch every few seconds. Pearl sat cross-legged on the floor, stroking Phoenix the cat, who was sitting on her lap, purring loudly, his eyes closed. Hanging on the wall in front of Pearl was a piece of bristol board, and written on the piece of bristol board was a list, scrawled untidily in black marker.

A few minutes later, Apollo came out of his bedroom, looking as if he had just woken up. His signature red suit looked rumpled, and his hair was coming out of its horns, as if he hadn't had time to put any gel in it. Plopping himself down on the sofa, he blinked at Trucy sleepily. "Is this really necessary, Trucy?" he asked, stifling a yawn. "Any more early starts, and I'll be falling asleep at noon."

Trucy glared at him. "It's Sergeant Trucy to you," she told him sternly, sounding uncharacteristically business-like. "Now, listen up, troops! We're laying out our battle plan for tonight." Trucy pointed her wand at Pearl. "Report, Trooper Fey!"

_Methinks you're taking the army theme a bit too far there, Trucy, _Apollo thought, but since Trucy was already annoyed at him for being late for the meeting, he decided not to say anything.

"Um. . . on what, Sergeant Trucy?" Pearl asked, looking a bit taken aback.

"What is Maya Fey's schedule for the day, Trooper Fey? Report on that," she told Pearl.

Pearl closed her eyes, the better to remember. "Today is the last day of lectures at the Gatewater. Mystic Maya and the other spirit mediums will be showing the differences between their techniques by channeling spirits. They finish at one o'clock, I think, but then they're all having a late lunch in one of the banquet halls, so that should be another two hours, so I would say Mystic Maya would be free from three o'clock onward."

"Thank you, Trooper Fey." Trucy began to pace again. "Daddy's out looking for work today, since Maya is busy at the Gatewater. He leaves at noon and doesn't come back until four. Afterward, he'll return home and stay until five-thirty, when he will leave for the Gatewater, under the impression that he and Maya are going out to dinner with P–I mean, Trooper Fey and myself." She stopped pacing beside the poster, and pointed to it with her wand. "Now, if you'll just follow my pointer–"

"You mean your wand?" Apollo asked, settling into a more comfortable position. Trucy glared at him.

"Quiet, Trooper Justice!" she told him, waving her wand through the air menacingly. Apollo half-expected sparks to issue from the end of it, like in a Harry Potter movie, but then she turned back to the poster. "We then bring them through Viola Hall, where they will be greeted by their old friends. This will all occur by 18:15."

Apollo closed his eyes, trying to remember what time that was when using the twelve-hour clock. "Is that five-fifteen or six-fifteen?" he asked Trucy.

She rolled her eyes. "Six-fifteen," she told him. "Now, shush, Trooper Justice! The reunion lasts until 22:00–that's ten o'clock for those who don't know how to use the twenty-four hour clock–" She glared pointedly at Apollo before continuing, "–so that leaves them plenty of time to catch up with everybody else. Isn't it going to be so exciting?" she finished, scrapping her business-like demeanor with the last sentence and looking like her regular self, smiling and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

"It'll be exciting for me, but for a decidedly different reason if Mr. Wright doesn't want this reunion at all," Apollo agreed sullenly. "He likes you two; he'll let it go. Me? I can say goodbye to my pitiful pudding wage."

Trucy patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. "Daddy wouldn't take away your pudding," she reassured him, but not very convincingly.

"Gee, thanks a lot," he replied dryly, standing up and stretching. "If that's all, I'll go back to bed. I'm really tired, and I'd like to be wide-awake so I can run away from your dad at the reunion. You two can stay out here if you want, but I'd prefer it if you went back to your place, Trucy."

"Don't worry, we're leaving," Trucy assured him, taking the bristol board off the wall. "Coming, Pearl? We can work on your. . . thing, for the reunion. You know." She winked at the spirit medium.

Pearl nodded, removing the cat from her lap. "Okay," she said, getting to her feet slowly. "Bye, Mr. Apollo!"

"Byem" he said wearily, opening the door to his bedroom, wondering momentarily what "thing" they would be working on. Then his fatigue kicked in, and he crawled into bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

—_Later—_

Apollo, Phoenix, Pearl, and Trucy arrived at the Gatewater together. Phoenix, rather than wearing his usual hoodie, jeans, and blue hat, was wearing the old blue suit and red tie from his glory days as a defence attorney, thinking he was having dinner at a restaurant that wouldn't appreciate his normal clothes, though he still hadn't shaved. The others had come in their normal clothes, even Trucy, who refused to wear anything besides her costume. Apollo had come along with the others on the pretense of wanting to talk with Maya before they left, and Phoenix had accepted the story, though with a raised eyebrow.

"Daddy, you can go ahead and get Maya," Trucy told Phoenix, looking suspiciously innocent. "We'll wait in the lobby."

"Sure," Phoenix replied, ambling toward the elevator. "Don't get into trouble, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy!" Trucy called to him as he stepped inside the elevator. When the doors had slid shut, she turned to the other two. "Now, time to put our plan into action!" she said. "Pearl, can you lead us to Viola Hall?"

Pearl nodded, and led the way up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. At the end was a pair of closed doors, outside of which hung a sign that read, "Viola Hall." All was silent behind them. Apollo walked up to the doors and looked at them curiously.

"I don't hear anyone," he said, then opened the door slightly. The room was full of people, quietly talking to each other as they waited for Maya and Phoenix to appear. He shut it silently and turned. "Never mind, the guests are here," he said nervously.

"How many are there?" Pearl asked nervously. "I don't do well speaking in front of lots of people. . ."

Apollo stared at her. "Why would you be speaking. . ." He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't need to. He had his answer within a heartbeat. Glaring first at Trucy, then at Pearl, he said, "Oh, no. You're announcing it, aren't you, that they're getting engaged?" He took a step forward. "I'm warning Maya and Mr. Wright."

Both girls' eyes slid toward an open door next to him, the keys still in the lock. They then exchanged looks, Trucy's regretful, Pearl's uneasy. Wordlessly coming to a decision, they turned to face him again. "Sorry, Apollo," Trucy said, taking a few steps toward him. "But we can't have you ruining this." Then they both pushed him into the closet, and Trucy turned the keys in the lock until she heard a click.

"Hey!" he yelled, pounding his fist against the door. "Let me out, you two! Let me out!"

Pearl and Trucy hurried down the hallway. When they reached the lobby, Phoenix and Maya still hadn't come down. They sat down in chairs silently, Pearl squirming in her seat.

"I feel guilty," she said, her eyes downcast. "Poor Mr. Apollo."

Trucy sighed. "It had to be done, Pearl. He would have ruined our battle plan."

"I still feel bad," Pearl replied quietly. "When will we let him out?"

"After you make the announcement," Trucy replied. "He'll only be in there for half an hour. If he let me teach him magic, though, he'd be able to unlock the door and get out. So, technically, it's his fault."

Pearl sighed. "Maybe we shouldn't make the announcement. Maybe we should just let everything fall into place by itself," she suggested. "After all, Mr. Nick and Maya–"

At that moment, they heard the elevator doors open. Trucy leapt to her feet, suddenly looking nervous.

"That's Daddy and Maya," she said, smoothing her costume over. "Time to execute Operation Engagement, Pearl." She crossed the lobby toward the stairs and, reluctantly, Pearl followed.

—_Phoenix Wright_—

At the same time Apollo was being locked inside the broom closet, Phoenix knocked on Maya's room's door. Almost a second after he knocked, the door opened, and Maya stood in the doorframe, grinning as she noted his clothes.

"I miss seeing you in that," she said, gesturing toward the suit. "It brings back loads of memories, doesn't it?"

Phoenix looked down at his suit, then at her again. "Yeah," he agreed, thinking about some of the things that had happened when he had been a lawyer. "It does." He almost added that it felt wrong to wear it when he was no longer a lawyer, but he didn't want to

"How do I look?" Maya asked, fiddling with the Master's Talisman she wore around her neck. "I wore my good robe and kimono for tonight!"

He looked at her clothes, which looked exactly the same as they had yesterday. "Um. . . great?"

"Thanks!" Maya looked almost as if she were glowing. "So, Pearl and Trucy are in the lobby, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, and Apollo, too. He says he came to 'talk to you,'" Phoenix informed her, twitching his fingers when he said "talk to you."

Maya nodded sagely. "Ah. So, whatever they're planning, it'll happen tonight, won't it?"

He nodded in reply. "Yep."

"Well, whatever it is, pretend we had no clue that anything was going to happen, okay? It'll thrill them." She stepped out into the hall and lead the way toward the elevator.

"That won't be hard. We still have no clue what they're doing," he pointed out, walking half a step behind her. They stepped inside the elevator, along with an old woman leaning heavily on a cane. They pressed the button that would take them to the lobby as the doors slid closed and the awkward elevator music began to play.

After they had descended a floor, the old woman hobbled out, leaving the two of them alone in the elevator. As the doors closed and they began to descend again, Maya continued their conversation as if there had been no interruption. "We'll find out soon enough, I expect. But something tells me we're not going to end up having dinner where we thought we were."

The elevator ground to a halt when it reached the ground floor, and Phoenix and Maya stepped out into the lobby. Pearl and Trucy were standing almost right outside the elevator doors, waiting for them.

"Hi, Maya!" Trucy greeted the spirit medium, beaming. "Hi, Daddy!"

Phoenix looked around the lobby, but there was no sign of Apollo. He exchanged a confused look with Maya, then asked his daughter, "Where's Apollo?"

Pearl lowered her eyes to the floor, looking guilty. If she had a tail, it would have been between her legs, like a dog who had disobeyed their master. Trucy herself looked a little flustered as she replied a little too quickly, "He went to the bathroom." Glancing sideways at Pearl, she gave a little cough.

The young spirit medium looked at Trucy, confused. Then, a look of understanding dawned on her face. "Oh! Right!" she said. Then she turned to Phoenix. "Um, Mr. Nick? Remember when we were invited to that ceremony for the Nickel Samurai?"

Phoenix tapped his chin with his finger, a look of mock concentration on his face. "When Maya was kidnapped by a professional assassin, I was coerced into defending a guilty man, I almost sent an innocent woman to her death, my friend-turned-rival appeared when we all thought he was dead, and I had to pay for the party we had afterward? Vaguely."

Trucy giggled. "Where was this party?"

"Viola Hall," Maya replied. "It's on the second floor." A vacant look appeared in her eyes. "The food they had there was amazing. Especially since I hadn't eaten in a couple of days."

"Can we go there before we go out for dinner?" Trucy begged. "Please?"

Phoenix sighed. "Trucy, I don't–" Maya elbowed him in the side, giving him a look that clearly said, _Remember? Their plan? _"Actually, yeah, let's go," he said, changing tactic at top speed. "It'll kill time until Apollo comes back from the bathroom."

"Let's go, then!" Trucy cried, leading the way up the stairs. Pearl followed her, looking nervous and excited at the same time. Maya and Phoenix followed behind them, whispering to each other so that Trucy and Pearl didn't hear.

"I wonder what it's going to be?" Maya muttered, keeping her eyes fixed on the girls in front of her. "Maybe we're going to dinner here?"

He shook his head. "Maybe this isn't their plan," he suggested. "Maybe they honestly want to see the place."

"I doubt it. _I_ still think we're going to end up having dinner there." She closed her eyes for a moment. "I hope there are cheeseburgers," she added fervently.

Phoenix merely rolled his eyes and continued up the stairs.

They reached the corridor outside Viola Hall a couple of minutes later. Trucy and Pearl dashed toward the double doors at the end of the hallway, looking both excited and nervous. Phoenix and Maya followed at a slower pace, Phoenix stopping in front of a broom closet. Was it him, or could he hear soft thumps from behind that door?

Trucy walked up to him and pulled him next to Maya, who was standing in front of the door with a quizzical look on her face, evidently trying to figure out what could be on the other side. "Can we go inside, Daddy?" she begged. "Please?"

Phoenix nodded. "Yes, we can go inside. Just make sure–"

Before he could finish his sentence, Trucy had let go of his arm and raced back to the doors. Together, she and Pearl pushed them wide open, and Phoenix stopped talking, his mouth still open, as he stared at what lay beyond the doors of Viola Hall.

* * *

**I couldn't resist. I just couldn't resist having Trucy and Pearl lock Apollo in the broom closet. XD**

**So, the reunion starts in the next chapter, and, personally, I can't wait for your reactions to it. I've been planning it for months, who the guests are and what's happened to them in the past seven years. Hopefully, I can finish it as quickly as I finished this one, but I make no promises. XDD**


	7. Whips, Magicians, and Fish Bowl Helmets

**Wow, another quick update. I'm on a roll!**

**Disturbo: -supplies relief-**

**MorenoX25: . . . Now you're tempting me to scrap my original plan for what happens to Apollo and have them find him two hours after the reunion is finished. XD**

**ryuu13: Yeah, I know the plot's pretty common, but I don't think anyone's done the reunion thing before. Plus, it's interesting to see the variations of the plots in these fics, isn't it?**

**BlueRaider: Poor Pearl. Trucy is such a bad influence on her. :) And Apollo, getting his payback time. . . hmm. Possibly. XD**

**sonicandlink: . . . And now **_**you're**_** tempting me to scrap my original plan for what happens to Apollo. You people are so mean. XDD**

**And so, in this chapter, we get to catch up with most of the people invited. To prevent it from seeming boring, I've tried to make it as funny as I could, but I don't know how well I succeeded. Either way, enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**Whips, Magicians, and Fish Bowl Helmets**

In essence, Viola Hall hadn't changed much the last time he'd been here. The tables, both the long ones laden with food and the small, round ones surrounded by chairs, scattered throughout the room, the stage with the red curtains, the red carpet rolled out on the floor. . . but those details weren't what he was staring at with shock. In a semicircle around the door stood a group of people, people whom he had never expected to see, not here, not now, not ever. When the doors had opened and they saw Maya and him, some began clapping, and someone near the back of the group shouted, "Nick! Maya!"

Phoenix and Maya turned to face Pearl and Trucy at the same time, who were watching the two of them with wide eyes. "Did you two put this together?" they asked in unison.

Trucy nodded. "It was Pearl's idea," she explained. "And Apollo helped!"

"Do you like it, Mr. Nick?" Pearl asked anxiously. "We did it for you and Mystic Maya, so you could talk with everybody you met back when you were a lawyer." She looked worried that he might not have appreciated this reunion.

Phoenix felt his eyes tear up. Maya, the first to notice, asked in a surprised voice, "Nick, are you going to cry?"

He blinked. "Sorry." He hugged Pearl, then Trucy, whispering the word "Thanks" in their ears for lack of anything better to say.

As Maya took her turn to hug the girls, a man wearing a red suit stepped forward, hand outstretched. "Long time no see, Wright," he said, nodding in greeting.

Phoenix took his head, shook it, then released it. "Hello, Edgeworth," he said, a bit confused. "Um. . . no offence, but why are you here? Haven't you been living in Europe for the past while?"

"I do come back to America occasionally," Edgeworth informed him, as if any simpleton would know this, "and I happened to be in the country when your apprentice invited me. Apollo Justice, I believe his name was, but his voice was rather strained and it was hard to make it out. Is he here?"

Phoenix shrugged. "My daughter says he's in the bathroom, but something tells me that's not what he's doing."

Trucy came bouncing over at that moment, grinning from ear-to-ear. "Daddy, did you know that Maximillion Galactia's here?" she asked excitedly. "He's a great magician! Not as good as Daddy or Uncle Valant, of course, but still. . ."

Edgeworth was staring at Trucy, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Phoenix, who was used to this reaction when people saw his daughter, placed a hand on Trucy's shoulder and smiled at him. "Edgeworth, this is my daughter, Trucy, magician extraordinare. Trucy, this is Miles Edgeworth, my ex-rival."

They shook hands, Edgeworth looking a little baffled. Then Trucy skipped away, presumably to speak with Max. When she was out of earshot, Edgeworth asked, "Wright, how old is she?"

"Fifteen," Phoenix replied, trying not to laugh. "She's not my biological daughter, though. I adopted her seven years ago."

Edgeworth nodded understandingly. "Zak Graymarye's daughter?"

"Yep," was all Phoenix could say to that. Maya came over at that moment, beaming.

"Hey, Mr.f Edgeworth! I haven't seen you in a while!" she said, clapping her hands together. "What's up?"

As Edgeworth turned to speak with her, Phoenix walked away, wanting to talk with someone else. He took only a few steps, however, when there was a sharp greatcoat, and he felt something slap him across the face, biting into his skin. He let out a yelp and closed his eyes, which were watering with pain. A woman's cool, arrogant voice said, "And so, we meet again. . . Mr. Phoenix Wright!"

When the pain faded away and he could open his eyes without fear of bawling, Phoenix noticed the young, blue-haired woman standing in front of him. She wore black pants and a black jacket with blue buttons and puffy white sleeves, and in her gloved hands she wielded an orange whip. There was only one person who he knew that could fit this description. . .

"Franziska von Karma," he replied, touching the welt her whip had left on his cheek. "It's been a while."

Franziska's lip curled. "The last time we met, you still had your attorney's badge." Her eyes fell on his lapel, the place where he had used to pin his badge and wear it with pride. She shook her head. "To think that you, Mr. Phoenix Wright, would be defeated by a mere rookie, especially the likes of Mr. Klavier Gavin!"

"Yeah," he replied icily, deciding he needed to steer the topic away from his badge. "So, what have you been up to lately?"

"Extending my perfect win record as the Chief Prosecutor," she answered in an arrogant voice. "Naturally.

"Naturally," Phoenix replied, thinking, _She hasn't changed a bit, has she? Whip, "perfect" win record. . ._

There was another sharp crack as she whipped him across the face. "Stop smirking," she ordered. "I grow weary of this conversation, Mr. Phoenix Wright. I will speak with you again later." She drifted over to one of the tables where some of the guests had lined up to serve themselves. The sight of her carrying a whip guaranteed her a spot in the front of the queue, and, shaking his head, Phoenix spotted a young woman wearing a costume similar to Pearl's, looking in his direction, a sad smile one her face. He made a beeline for her, but before he reached her, a certain detective blocked his path.

"Hey, pal!" he greeted Phoenix, shoving his hands into the pocket of a beige-coloured overcoat. "Haven't seen you in a while!"

"Hi, Detective Gumshoe," Phoenix said resignedly, still watching the woman. "Listen, can I talk with you later? I want to–"

Gumshoe looked hurt. "Aw, come on. That's no way to treat your pal, pal!"

Phoenix sighed. "Sorry, but I–"

At that moment, a pregnant woman seemed to appear at Gumshoe's elbow, wiping her short, dull brown hair from her face. Recognizing Phoenix, she saluted. "Hello, sir!"

"Hi, Maggey." As she lowered her right hand, he noticed a ring on one of her fingers. "Is that a wedding ring?" he asked, surprised. Then he looked at Gumshoe. "To you?"

Gumshoe nodded. "Yep, pal! For four years."

"How'd you afford it?" Phoenix asked, curious. "Your salary seems to get cut every ten seconds."

Maggey smiled. "He's the Chief of Detectives! Didn't you hear, sir?"

Gumshoe nodded again. "I can afford better-quality instant noodles now, pal!" he informed Phoenix proudly.

"Um. . . great?" he said, not really sure what to say. There was an awkward silence before Maggey linked her arm with Gumshoe's and led him away, toward one of the tables to get something to eat.

As soon as they were gone, Phoenix looked around wildly; where was she? Then he spotted the woman, talking with another, shorter woman wearing the same costume as she. He took a few steps toward her, but someone bumped into him from behind. He turned around to find a brown-haired man that was about his age, tall, lanky, with a small beard and a paint-stained shirt.

"You!" Phoenix bellowed. Everyone within earshot turned to look at him, confused, but he ignored them. "Why are you here?"

The man looked hurt. "That's not a very nice way to greet your old friends, Nick! And, besides, didn't you want me here? I got invited and all. . ."

Phoenix let out a sigh. "Larry–"

"Laurice!" the man, Larry, replied hotly. "I'm Laurice Deauxnim!"

He ignored this. "Larry, I wasn't the one who set this up, you know. It was Pearls, Maya's little cousin, and my daughter–" He looked around, then pointed at Trucy, who was showing a purple-haired, top-hatted magician her Mr. Hat trick. "–Trucy."

Larry stared at Trucy. "Whoa, Nick, how old is she?"

Phoenix sighed. He did not want to be having this conversation with Larry. "Fifteen."

Larry let out a low whistle. "Wow, Nick! I never knew you were that kind of guy when you were younger–"

"No, no, no!" Phoenix interrupted, waving his arms wildly. "It's not like that! She's not _my_ daughter."

"But you just finished saying–" Larry began, looking confused.

"Look, Larry, I don't have time for this," he interrupted, talking a step backwards. "I–"

"Aren't we going to talk about where we both are after all this time?" Larry asked, looking snubbed. "You've already talked to Edgey and Franzy and that detective guy. . ."

Phoenix turned and silently began to walk away. Quickly.

"Franzy's Whip-Lash Splash turned into a best-seller!" Larry called, running after him. "Laurice Deauxnim is now a rich and famous children's author!"

He stopped and, surprised, turned to look at Larry. "Wait a second. You're. . . famous? _And_ rich?"

Larry nodded enthusiastically. "Didn't think I could do it, did you? So, what have you been up to?"

"I've been playing piano," Phoenix replied bluntly, walking away again, thinking, _Even _Larry's_ richer than I am!_

Larry sounded surprised as he said, "I didn't know you could play piano."

Phoenix let out a sigh. "I can't. Now, if you'll excuse me–" His eyes slid to the woman, who was hugging Pearl, again. Larry saw her at the same moment he did.

"Whoa, Iris's is here!" he muttered, slipping by Phoenix. "See ya, Nick!" He took off for Iris, and Phoenix, cursing under his breath, followed him.

"Pearl, I haven't seen you in so long!" Iris was saying, releasing Pearl. Then she noticed Larry and Phoenix. "Mr. Laurice, Feenie!" she said, smiling widely at Phoenix.

"Hey, Iris!" Larry replied, looking a bit flushed.

Phoenix wanted to kick him. Instead, he said to Iris, "Hi. How are things at Hazakura Temple?"

Iris's face fell a little. "Fine," she replied softly. "Sister Bikini and I are busy training more nuns, and caring for all the new guests."

Phoenix opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, Larry blurted out, "Well, that's good, then, isn't it? So, um, Iris, how's Heavenly Hall?"

"Still standing," replied Iris, looking as bewildered by his question as she sounded.

"So, um, I was wondering, after this is over," Larry began, sounding a bit nervous, "if we could go up there and–"

Before he finished, Phoenix stomped on his foot with all his weight. Letting out a howl of pain, Larry began hopping up and down on his good foot, cursing loudly. Pearl, looking appalled by his awful language, slapped Larry across the face.

"Mr. Deauxnim! Stop saying such dirty words!" she yelled at him. Then she raised her hand to slap him again.

Phoenix grabbed Iris's hand. "Come on," he murmured in her ear, taking a few steps toward the other side of the room. "Let's get something to eat."

Iris, looking grateful, followed him toward one of the less-crowded, food-laden tables. Only one person stood there, a rather hairy-looking man wearing an orangish suit. "Mr. Wright!" he called, waving.

"Hello, Mr. Powers," Phoenix greeted him. He could feel Iris's hand tense up within his own, and, to be honest, he couldn't blame her; though Mr. Powers, an action star, was kind-hearted in nature, he looked very imposing. "How've you been?"

Mr. Powers sighed. "Still a poor, underpaid action star, I'm afraid," he said, looking glum. Then, looking at Iris, he brightened up. "Ah, and who is this lovely young lady?"

Blushing, she replied, "Iris." They shook hands, and Iris, looking much more at ease in Mr. Powers's presence, went to look for two plates for Phoenix and herself. When she was gone, Mr. Powers looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Is she your girlfriend?" he asked.

Phoenix shook his head. "Once," he replied. "A long time ago. But she's dedicated to service at her temple." He didn't want to get into the story of it at the moment, and Mr. Powers seemed to sense it, because he changed the subject to the newest Samurai series. Iris arrived a couple of minutes later with the plates and, after they had served themselves, waved goodbye to Mr. Powers and took a seat at a round, empty table, covered with a long white tablecloth that touched the floor. They had barely sat down, however, before the purple-haired man Trucy had been speaking to earlier and a young, blonde-haired, sparkly woman sat down across from them. The man looked angry, while the woman merely looked happily clueless.

"Ah, sweetie! So good to see you again!" the man said to Phoenix, and despite the words, his voice was full of rage.

Iris looked at Phoenix inquiringly. Sighing, he said, "Hello, Max, Regina." Turning to Iris, he asked, "Have you ever heard of Maximillion Galactia, from the Barry Big Circus?"

Iris nodded, smiling in understanding. "Once," she said. "Hello, Mr. Galactia, Regina. My name is Iris."

Regina beamed. "Hello, Iris!"

Max seemed not to have noticed anything. He had turned around in his seat and was glaring across the room, or, to be more specific, at Trucy. "That. . . that _girl_ just waltzes up to me, wearing that frivolous costume used by Troupe Graymarye–"

Phoenix looked at the clothes Max was wearing, thinking, _If Trucy's costume is frivolous, I wonder what he'd call his own?_

"–and she says to me, 'I know you! You're Maximillion Galactia! Troupe Graymarye beat you at the Magician Grand Prix years ago!'" He looked absolutely furious. "Zak Graymarye's daughter, she was. And she wanted _my_ autograph. Ha! A fan of the Graymarye's is no fan of Maximillion Galactia, and I told her so!"

Iris looked shocked. Phoenix placed a hand on her shoulder and opened his mouth to say something, but Max cut across him again, saying, "I know what you're thinking, sweetie! 'How dare she!' Exactly, sweetie, exactly! And she says to me, 'I'm not a _fan_ of the Graymaryes, I _am_ one!' A fifteen-year-old, a professional magician of a non-existent troupe? Ha!" He started laughing uncontrollably, humourlessly, then stopped as abruptly as he had begun. "And we began showing each other tricks, telling the other how it was done, and. . . and. . ." At this point, he seemed unable to go on.

Regina patted him on the shoulder consolingly. "That nice magician girl beat him," she told Iris and Phoenix, looking as if she hadn't a care in the world that Max had just been out-magicked by a teenaged girl. "He's sad now."

Max glared at Phoenix. "Why is she here, anyway, sweetie?" he demanded. "That untalented, classless–"

"She's my daughter," Phoenix interrupted him dryly.

Max stared blankly at him for a few seconds. Then he stood up, and said awkwardly, "Um, I have some business–" Without finishing his sentence, he left, walking away hurriedly. Regina watched him sadly.

"He's so sensitive since the Graymaryes beat him in that big contest," she explained to Iris and Phoenix. "I think the Graymaryes are really good, though, don't you, if they can beat Max? Oh, and did you know we got married?"

"Congratulations!" Iris said, beaming at Regina. All Phoenix could think to say was, "So, you, um, decided not to marry Trilo?"

Regina giggled. "Of course not, silly, he's a puppet." Then she looked over her shoulder at Max, who was talking with Maya and trying not to look at Trucy, who was standing nearby with Pearl. "I'd better go. Max looks really upset. Bye!" she skipped away from their table toward Max and Maya.

_Glad to see she finally realized Trilo's a puppet,_ Phoenix thought to himself with a smile. Iris looked a bit bemused, but she asked no questions, and they ate their food, Iris talking about Hazakura Temple's progress and Phoenix of the guests that had arrived. Of those he hadn't met, he recognized Ben, a soft-spoken ventriloquist whose puppet did all the talking and was one of Max's coworkers, Moe, the ringleader of the same circus that Max, Regina, and Ben belonged to, and Sister Bikini, Iris's superior at Hazakura Temple. As soon as they finished their food, they stood up, and there was a thump from beneath the table.

Phoenix and Iris exchanged a confused look before he knelt down and lifted the tablecloth. A woman with brown, puffy hair, a green sweater, an expensive-looking camera, and a notepad was rubbing her head, cursing softly under her breath in a southern accent.

"_Lotta_?" Phoenix said, half-angry, half-amused. "What are you doing?"

Lotta glared at him. "I ain't eavesdroppin', if that's what you're thinkin', Mr. Ex-Lawyer," she said. "I just. . . dropped my fork."

Phoenix looked at the camera and notepad, the pages of which were covered with messy handwriting. "And were you interviewing it, too?" he asked dryly. "Come out from under there, and tell me what this is all about."

"Fine, fine," Lotta replied, crawling out from beneath the table, clutching her camera as if afraid it would run away if she let go. Sitting down in one of the chairs, she said, "I was invited to this fancy-schmancy reunion. So I figured, I'll find out what's up with Mr. Ex-Lawyer, maybe find a scoop, ya see. And if there was nothin' interesting about ya? Well, this place is millin' with famous people. Maximillion Galactia, Will Powers, Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma, even a real-live Graymarye!"

"Same as usual, I see, Lotta," he observed. "Sort of desperate, though, to try to get a story on an ex-defense attorney whose name was cleared a month ago."

Lotta glared at him. "You'd be desperate, too, if ya had to compete with the likes of Spark Brushel! Heard of 'im?"

Phoenix stared at her. "Are you kidding?" he asked.

"Okay, ya have," conceded Lotta. "Well, he and I have a bit of a rivalry, ya see. Well, a big one, really. I get wind of a scoop, he's already sniffed it out." She looked angry. "But not this time. This time, I got the scoop! By the time Brushel's sniffer smells the stink from this place, I'll already be here, layin' my claim to the story!"

Iris looked even more confused. "Um. . . Feenie? Who is this woman?"

Lotta turned to her, her manner turning from anger to friendliness. "Lotta Hart, investigative journalist. I'm from the Heart of the Heartland. And you're Sister Iris, a nun at Hazakura Temple?"

"Yes, Ms. Hart," she replied, a small smile unfolding on her face.

Lotta whipped out her notepad and pen. "The same Sister Iris from the Misty Fey trial? The one who meddled with the crime scene?" She looked from Iris to Phoenix and back again. "What'cha doin', anyway, datin' Mr. Ex-Lawyer here when you're a temple nun?"

"Lotta–" Phoenix began, but suddenly, Pearl was running toward their table, a crazy look on her face, her hand raised.

"Mr. Nick!" she cried, slapping him across the face. "What – are – you – doing – dating – Iris?" With each word came a slap to his face.

"Pearl!" Iris cried, alarmed. "Please stop hurting Feenie!"

Pearl stopped grudgingly, glaring at Phoenix. "He can't date you if he's ma–"

Phoenix, watching Pearl carefully to see if she would hit him again, said, "Pearl, I'm not dating Iris." He looked sideways at Iris, who nodded a little sadly, before continuing, "We're just two friends eating together."

"Sounds like a date to me, Mr. Nick," Pearl replied resentfully, but she walked away from them, though she never let her eyes move from Phoenix.

He sighed. "Sorry, Iris, but I think Pearl will probably just keep coming over and slapping me if I. . ." He didn't know how to put it politely and allowed his voice to trail away. Iris seemed to understand, however; she nodded and stood up.

"I know, Feenie." She looked at him awkwardly. "Um. . . bye."

"Yeah. See you later," he agreed, and swiftly walked away. As much as he liked Pearl, he wanted to kick her for disrupting his conversation with Iris.

At that moment, the doors to Viola Hall banged open. Everyone looked round to find two people striding into the hall, one a short, blond woman whose hair had been pulled back into a bun and who looked rather frustrated, the other wearing what looked like a blue spacesuit, complete with a helmet that looked like a large fish bowl.

The blond woman caught sight of Phoenix. "Mr. Wright, could you _please_ tell this woman that I was invited to this reunion?" she asked, sounding irritable. "I've just spent the past half hour trying to convince her to let me in."

The person wearing the spacesuit took off her helmet to reveal an old, thin woman's face, with short, slightly curly white hair. If possible, she looked even more irate than the blond woman. "It's you, young whippersnapper!" she said to Phoenix, scowling. "What are you doing here?"

"Dammit," Phoenix muttered under his breath, staring at the alien-woman.

Maya suddenly appeared in front of the blond woman. "Hey, Ms. Andrews!" she said happily.

"What, no greeting for me?" the older woman exploded. "Gah! That's what you get from youngsters nowadays. No respect for their elders! Why, in my day, if you didn't say hello to the old folks, you'd–"

"Hey, Adrian," Phoenix said wearily. To the old woman, he said, "She's invited, Ms. Oldbag." Or, at least, he assumed so. _Pearl probably had her on the invite list, _he thought to himself.

Oldbag stopped her rant against the youth of today to glare at Phoenix. "Now, see here, young whippersnapper, I was told not to let anyone without an invitation into Viola Hall, and ever since I was rehired by this place–"

"How could she have an invitation?" Edgeworth, who had been standing nearby, asked. "We were all invited over the phone. . ."

It was when Oldbag turned to look at him that Edgeworth realized his mistake. The ugly, angry scowl on her face melted away, to be replaced with an expression better suited for teenaged girls swooning over boys. "Edgy-poo. . ." she said quietly.

Edgeworth started to back away slowly, his eyes fixed on Oldbag. A few seconds later, she ran toward him, arms outstretched and he turned around and raced away from her. Phoenix sighed and shook his head, then turned to Adrian, who was watching Oldbag and Edgeworth with one eyebrow raised. Maya waved a hand in front of her face, and, with a little start, Adrian tore her eyes away from Oldbag and Edgeworth and looked at Phoenix.

"Hi, Adrian," he said pleasantly.

"Hello, Mr. Wright. I'm sorry for being late." She checked her watch before looking up at him again. "I had a lot of paperwork to finish today, and when I arrived, _she–_" At the word "she," she pointed at Oldbag, "–stopped me outside in the hallway. I kept telling her I was invited, but she wouldn't let me inside."

"It might have had something to do with the Juan Corrida thing," suggested Maya. "So, how have you been?"

Adrian grimaced. "I've been very busy. After the disaster with the Kurain Village exhibit, I thought I would be fired, but thankfully, I wasn't. Since then, I've been promoted to manage all of the security in Lordly Tailor." She spotted one of the tables piled with food. "If you'll excuse me, Maya, Mr. Wright, I haven't eaten for hours." She brushed past them and headed quickly toward the table. Maya watched her go, amused.

"Adrian hasn't really changed, has she?" she mused. "Anyway, this is great, isn't it, Nick? Pearly and Trucy really outdid themselves."

Edgeworth almost ran into them at that point, looking harried. He skidded to a stop, and looked wildly around before his eyes rested on a nearby round table, the ones with the white tablecloths. He threw himself to the ground and lifted the table cloth off the floor in his left hand. As he crawled beneath the table, he said to the two of them, "You never saw me, Wright, Maya." Then he allowed the tablecloth to drop back onto the floor, though his foot was sticking out from beneath it.

Maya opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Oldbag bowled into her, looking around wildly. Phoenix grabbed Maya by the arm before she hit the ground and pulled her back to her feet, glaring at Oldbag.

"Watch where you're going, whippersnapper!" Oldbag snapped at Maya. Then, her voice softened. "Have you seen Edgy-poo?"

Phoenix's eyes slid to the tablecloth. Edgeworth, seeming to realize his foot was still visible, whipped it beneath the table again. Turning to look at Oldbag again, he said, "Nope, haven't seen him."

Maya nodded her agreement.

"Hmph. What good are you whippersnappers, with your sharp eyes and ears, if you don't use them?" she asked, wandering away. "Must have run out here, into the hall. . ."

As soon as Oldbag closed the doors of Viola Hall behind her, Phoenix drifted over to the table. "She's gone, Edgeworth."

Edgeworth crawled out from beneath the table, looking around cautiously. Then he stood up, nodded thankfully to Maya and Phoenix, dusted off his knees, and left.

". . . Well that was odd," Phoenix observed aloud.

Maya nodded, staring after Oldbag. "She'll be looking for him all over the hotel now," she said, shaking her head. "Poor Ms. Oldbag."

Unknown to everyone in Viola Hall, who had been distracted by the entrance of Ms. Oldbag, Trucy had been setting up a microphone nearby. They only noticed when Trucy screamed into it, "Testing, testing, one, two, three!" Everyone covered their ears in an attempt to block out the ear-shattering screech it came out as. When the noise had died down and everyone was glaring at her, Trucy, not even batting an eye at the noise, said, "Hi, everybody. Pearl has an announcement to make, so I'll let her take over now."

Pearl, who had been standing nearby with a couple of cue cards in her hands, looking around nervously before stepping up to the microphone. "Um, hi, everybody," she said in a shaky voice, an improvement on what Trucy had done a few seconds ago. "There are, um, two reasons why we had this reunion. The first is because it's been so long that everyone's seen each other, and Trucy and I thought it would be nice if everyone got to catch up with each other."

People nodded in agreement to this, including Phoenix and Maya.

Looking a bit more confident, Pearl continued, "The second reason is because of Mr. Nick and Maya."

At this, Phoenix and Maya looked at each other, confused. "What is she talking about?" Phoenix whispered to her.

Maya shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe there was a second surprise to this they had planned?"

Pearl took a deep breath. Then, with a huge smile on her face, she said, "Mr. Nick and Maya – are getting married!"

* * *

**. . . And, on that note, I shall end the chapter. :)**

**Now, here's my reasoning on the characters I did and didn't invite to the reunion:**

**Edgeworth and Franziska: As soon as I thought of this plot idea, I was like, "They are so totally going to be at the reunion. They just **_**have**_** to."**

**Gumshoe and Maggey: I wanted these two to get married because they really deserve someone, and it was heavily hinted at the end of Trials and Tribulations they were going to get together. Plus, Gumshoe, like the two people above, **_**had**_** to come.**

**Larry: He's. . . he's **_**Larry**_**. That's all I can say, to be honest. XD**

**Iris: I wanted Iris to come, but at the same time, I didn't want her to come, because that complicates the whole MayaxPhoenix thing. . . but I've come up with a solution which will be explained later, and was hinted at (I don't know how well) during this chapter. :)**

**Lotta: I thought it would be funny if she was eavesdropping on Phoenix. Plus, as pointed out by Fireblast123 in a review, she would probably already be at the Gatewater anyway.**

**Oldbag: She's been in every game except Apollo Justice (she was in the credits for Trials and Tribulations) and it's a perfect opportunity for her to stalk Edgeworth. XDD**

**Max and Regina: Since Max already proposed to her anyway, and since she got a little wake-up call at the end of her father's murder trial, I figure she'd better go with the magician rather than the puppet. XD Also, while playing Apollo Justice, I noticed that Valant saying that Troupe Graymarye had won the Magician's Grand Prix, or something to that effect. Either way, it was the same thing that Max won, and then lost to them. Poor Max's ego must have taken quite a blow from that, eh?**

**Mr. Powers: Still a poor, underpaid action star. But he still totally had to come.**

**Adrian Andrews: I figured she deserves to come. If she hadn't been in Trials and Tribulations, I wouldn't have included her, because she wouldn't have known Maya, and this reunion is as many people that they both knew that I could think of. -nod-**

**Sister Bikini, Moe, and Ben/Trilo: My imagination is pretty much dead from all the work I had to make it do, trying to think of amusing ways to keep the story going and keep you guys interested, so I couldn't think of anything to put for them. :( They were still there, though.**

**Ron and Desiree: I had them on the list of people I wanted to come, but I couldn't think of any way to include them. Like I've said before, my imagination is shot. I'm sorry if you guys were looking forward to seeing them there. I really am. D8**

**Diego/Godot: I decided not to invite him, even though when people started suggesting that I **_**did**_** invite him, an idea popped into my head for a little scene between him and someone else whose name I shall not disclose at this point. . . Anyway, while he does sort of make amends with Phoenix at the end of Trials and Tribulations, he's probably still in jail, or he might have died in the past seven years. Who knows?**

**So now, the story is entering the homestretch, with only a couple of more chapters to go. Next chapter comes the reaction to Pearl's announcement, the arrival of a character I don't think many will expect to see, and a few more serious flashbacks. Fun, eh?**


	8. Memories

**Otaku69: Apollo's getting out pretty soon, actually. -nod-**

**MorenoX25: No, Ema and Klavier aren't at the party. I was considering inviting Ema, but that sort of fell by the wayside for some reason, and I wanted Klavier and the Gavineers to perform there for a reunion concert, but I decided that Maya might not feel too kindly toward Klavier because of the fact he made Phoenix lose his badge, plus their lead guitarist is on death row (unless they got a replacement before the band broke up), so that didn't exactly happen. Sorry. :(**

**Bico: You have two very good guesses there. One of them is right. :)**

**sonicandlink: I was thinking that Edgeworth hiding under the table was sort of uncharacteristic, because you wouldn't think of him doing that, but at the same time, you could so totally picture him doing anything to get away from Oldbag and I just couldn't resist. XDD**

**Indochine Ramera: I think that, if Franziska understood the concept of truth, she'd be too proud to admit it. Plus, in Trials and Tribulations, she said she continued to extend her perfect win record. I think. -tries to remember-**

**BlueRaider: . . . I totally forgot to invite the judge. -smacks self in the head- Also, methinks you need to get more sleep. XD**

**Daidairo: Good catch. -fixes- Thanks for pointing that out. :)**

**And now, the reactions to Pearl's announcement: **

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Memories**

The whole room was silent as everyone stared at Pearl, shocked at the announcement. Phoenix, who was absolutely dumbstruck, could do nothing but stand there, his mouth open, and blink, Pearl's words repeating themselves over and over in his mind. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Maya muttering something under her breath, a pleading look on her face as she gazed at Pearl.

And then, Viola Hall absolutely erupted with applause and cries of, "Congratulations!" Phoenix thought he heard Larry yell, "Way to go, Nick!" and Edgeworth say, "About time, Wright."

Phoenix shook his head and, raising his hands in protest, said in a loud voice, "Maya and I are _not_ getting married."

The applause and yells subsided instantly. Now, everyone's attention was focused on Phoenix. Most people looked confused, especially Trucy and Pearl, who were exchanging worried glances, wondering if their plan had backfired.

Just at that moment, the doors banged open, and Apollo staggered into the room, looking absolutely exhausted, his hair coming out of its spikes, his left foot stuck in a bucket. A rather incredulous-looking maid was standing in the hallway behind him, her hand on the doorknob of a broom closet, evidently having just let Apollo out.

Catching sight of Phoenix, Apollo cried to him, "Mr. Wright, Pearl and Trucy are going to–" It was then that he noticed the looks on the guests' faces, the microphone, and Pearl and Trucy, standing there, looking at him guiltily. "Never mind," he said, looking crestfallen as he shuffled backward a few steps, the bucket making a clanking sound with every step he took.

Phoenix looked at Trucy, one eyebrow raised. "Did you lock him in a broom closet?" he asked her sternly. She nodded, bowing her head. Letting out a sigh and deciding to let the matter drop for the moment, turned to the guests. "I'm sorry, there's been a misunderstanding. Maya and I, we're not getting married. We're not even dating."

"But, Mr. Nick–" Pearl began, then fell silent as Trucy poked her in the ribs.

"We love each other," Phoenix assured the people assembled, "but like brother and sister." Turning to Maya for support, he added, "Right, Ma–"

He stopped short when he saw Maya's face. She had been standing beside him all this time, listening to him without saying a word. Now he saw why; she had been watching him all this time, her eyes wide, pleading, and over bright. Even as he noticed this, two tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks, leaving behind tracks that shone in the lights overhead.

"Maya?" he asked, concerned. "Are you okay?"

She looked into his eyes for a heartbeat. Then she looked down at the floor, shaking her head and backing away a few steps before turning around and walking hurriedly away, brushing past Apollo and striding out into the hallway.

"Maya!" Phoenix called after her, feeling the bottom of his stomach disappear.

Pearl, looking worried, ran out after Maya, calling, "Mystic Maya! Mystic Maya! Come back!" Phoenix took a few steps after Pearl, but there was a sharp crack as something hit him across the face. He turned around; Franziska was standing nearby, holding her whip in her hand, glaring at him.

"Fool," she said to him, shaking her head.

"That was harsh, Wright," Edgeworth added, crossing his arms. "Very harsh."

Phoenix let out another sigh. "Listen, I don't have time for this. I need to go find Maya."

Before anyone else could fire criticism at him for his mistake, he turned and bolted for the corridor behind Viola Hall. Maya and Pearl had both disappeared, leaving him to run up and down hallways, yelling Maya's name. More than one guest popped their heads out their doors to see what the noise was about, and several threatened to call the front desk and have him thrown out, but he merely quickened his pace, just in case they _did_ call the front desk and have Oldbag kick him out of the hotel.

Ten minutes later, as he was running past an elevator on the third floor, the doors opened and he hit Pearl as she stepped outside. Her eyes were red, and tears were pouring down her cheeks. He caught her by the wrist before she hit the ground and pulled her back up into a standing position, pulling her over toward the wall.

"I-I can't find her, M-Mr. Nick," Pearl told him, stammering in an effort to stop herself from sobbing. "I-I've looked in her room, in all the hallways, and the lobby. . ."

"I can't find her either, Pearls," Phoenix informed her softly, though his insides were twisted with guilt and worry. He couldn't help but remember the last time Maya had gone missing in this hotel, when she had been kidnapped by Shelly DeKiller. . .

Pearl gazed up at him silently. Then she let out a loud wail. "I'm sorry!" she cried. "I'm sorry, Mr. Nick! I don't deserve to–" Sobbing, she took a few steps away from him, but he was still holding her wrist. He gently pulled her toward him and gave her a comforting hug, at a loss of what else to do.

"It's okay, Pearl," he said, trying to calm her down. "It's okay. We'll find her."

Gradually, Pearl's sobs subsided into mere sniffles. Phoenix sat down and buried his face in his hands, trying to think of where Maya could be. She wasn't in the lobby, or in her room. He understood this; she would want to go somewhere where they wouldn't think to look for her, but where that was, he did not know.

_And why had she gone running like that?_ he wondered. _She agreed with me. She said we were never going to end up together. She would have said something, if she, well, felt that way, wouldn't she?_

"Phoenix," a shockingly familiar voice, a voice he hadn't heard in a long time, interrupted his reverie. "It's been a long, long time."

Phoenix looked up; where Pearl had been standing mere seconds ago stood a completely different woman. She wore Pearl's clothes, though they did not fit very well, and her hair was set in the same style, but she was older, taller, with a longer face and a completely different aura to her.

"M-Mia?" Phoenix stammered, staring at her in shock. Here, standing in front of him, was his mentor, Mia Fey, Maya's older sister, who had been murdered nine years ago. Because of they Feys' ability to channel the spirits of the dead, however, Mia had been able to help him in cases back when he had been a defence attorney, but he hadn't been expecting Pearl to channel her now.

She smiled at him. "Yes, it's me," she said, sitting down next to him. "I didn't expect to see you here when she channeled me. I thought she wanted me to talk with Maya again."

"We, um, sort of lost her," Phoenix admitted, shame-faced.

Mia gave a start. "What?"

He explained about the reunion, Pearl's announcement, and Maya's disappearance. When he finished, Mia shook her head.

"Phoenix, remember when, at the end of Iris's murder trial, I told you that there was nothing more you could learn from me about law?" she asked him.

Phoenix nodded, not quite sure where this was going.

"It seems I still have a bit to teach you about life."

_Ouch, _he thought to himself.

Mia seemed to know what he was thinking, because she smiled a little. "You never realized that Maya might have loved you, did you?"

He was about to ask her, "How would you know? You died the day Maya and I met, and it's hardly as if you've seen us talk with each other very often," before thinking better of it. Mia again seemed to guess what he had been about to say, because she nodded in an understanding sort of way.

"Do you remember what I told you, seven years ago, during Iris's trial? Maya had left me a note after our mother was killed, explaining the situation of her near-death and asking what she should do." Phoenix nodded. "There was a bit more to the note, you see, that I didn't tell you about."

"Why not?" Phoenix interrupted curiously. Mia looked at him, shaking her head.

"In a minute," she told him. "Anyway, Maya, knowing that there was a possibility she could die, had written at the very end, 'If I don't make it out of this alive, tell Nick that I love him.' Since she survived, I decided she would probably tell you herself, so I neglected to mention it."

Phoenix stared at her. "Did she really say that?"

"Yes, or something very similar," Mia assured him.

He shook his head, not believing it. "You're lying," he replied. He reached into the pocket of his suit and gripped his Magatama, staring at her for the Psyche-Locks to appear. He was not quite sure why he brought the Magatama; he had seen it lying on his bedside table, and felt an urge to slip it into his pocket. Perhaps it was because it felt wrong, not to wear his suit without talking along the Magatama that had helped him so often when he had been a lawyer. No matter the reason he had brought it, he could see no Psyche-Locks. He let go of it and extracted his hand from his pocket, still staring at Mia.

"As you can see, I'm not lying, Phoenix," she told him, shifting her position slightly. "I find it odd, though, how you never caught on. By the sound of it, everyone at the reunion did, especially Pearl."

"Maya thought it was just a fantasy of Pearl's," Phoenix pointed out, not quite knowing why he continued to argue against Mia.

"Did she ever actually say that it was only just a fantasy?" Mia asked, raising an eyebrow. "Did she ever actually come out and say, 'I love you, but only like a brother'?"

Phoenix thought long and hard for a moment, his mind scrambling to remember such a time, but he came up short. "No," he admitted at last. "No, she never did." He stared at the opposite wall in silence, his mind racing as it tried to process what exactly was going on. So far, he could only make sense of four things.

Fact one: Pearl and Trucy had just announced that he and Maya were about to get married.

Fact two: Everyone except him seemed to have been expecting this.

Fact three: Pearl had been right all along. As far as Maya's feelings went, at least.

Fact four: He was so confused that he didn't know what to do.

"So, there's only one question, isn't there?" Mia said, breaking the silence. Phoenix gave a start and looked round at her, raising an eyebrow.

"What's that?" he asked, though he knew the answer even before she gave it.

"Do you love Maya back?"

Those six words made Phoenix want to run far, far away and hide. How was he supposed to answer that question, and so quickly? He stared at Mia beseechingly, who smiled a little bit.

"Think about it for a moment, Phoenix," Mia said softly, patting him on the knee.

Phoenix nodded, and as he closed his eyes, his mind was flooded with memories. . .

—_February, Seven Years Ago—_

Phoenix, Maya, and Pearl stepped inside a very bright, very pink restaurant, albeit grudgingly. Already, a small group, consisting of Edgeworth, Franziska, Gumshoe, and Larry had gathered at one of the tables, plates of food in front of them. Three chairs had been left for them, and they sat down, Pearl still sniffing and dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. Phoenix couldn't feel more grateful to have a place to sit down; it had been a long, painful day, with a long, painful trial for all three of them, and he was absolutely exhausted.

"Hey, pal!" Gumshoe greeted them cheerfully. "You okay?"

Maya nodded. "We're great!" she said as enthusiastically as she could muster, though everyone present could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

At that moment, Maggey, wearing an orange maid uniform, entered the room via the double doors to the kitchen, carrying three menus. She set them down in front of Phoenix, Maya, and Pearl. "Welcome to Très Bien. Here's you're menus."

Phoenix accepted his, albeit reluctantly, and looked at the others' plates. Both Edgeworth and Franziska had barely touched their food, and Larry was staring at Maggey, absent-mindedly shoveling his food into his mouth while Gumshoe glared at him.

Pearl started flipping through her menu, her forehead wrinkled as she tried to read the French names of the plates aloud. "What's a gat-ee-o?" she asked no one in particular.

Edgeworth glanced over at her menu. "Gâteau is cake," he answered.

"Um, okay," Pearl said, flipping to another page. "What about. . . es-cor-gots?"

"Snails," Edgeworth replied instantly.

Pearl gasped. "They eat snails! The poor things!"

At that moment, Phoenix became aware of the fact that Franziska was staring at him, her hand twitching toward something beneath the table. Phoenix, wondering if she was considering drawing her whip, flinched instinctively. She gave him a look that clearly said, _Fool_, but said aloud, "May I speak with you for a moment, Mr. Phoenix Wright?"

Perplexed, Phoenix nodded. Franziska stood up and led the way to a corner of the room, out of earshot of the others.

"Mr. Phoenix Wright, I have something I believe you may want to see." She reached into her pocket and extracted a folded white card. "This," she said quietly, "is the fourth piece of evidence from a certain case a year ago. As the case has been solved, I decided this would be of more interest to you than to the police."

It took Phoenix a second to realize what Franziska was talking about. Then he remembered; the Shelly DeKiller case. Three pieces of evidence had been shown in court from DeKiller's hideout, but a fourth had gone missing mysteriously. Curiously, he accepted the card. Unfolding it, he froze, staring at it.

"This is DeKiller's calling card," he said at last.

Franziska's lip curled. "Very observant. But, as you can see, it is a bit. . . different than the others," she said, before returning to the table. Phoenix remained, still staring at the card. The telltale pink seashell that signified it had been left by Shelly DeKiller was there, plan as day, but someone had drawn a face using the shell as an outline. And it wasn't just anyone's face; it was _his_. The illustrator had even written "Nick" on the card.

Only two people called him Nick. Only one had ever had access to one of these cards. She had even said she'd drawn something, hadn't she. . .?

"Hey, Nick?"

Maya had left the table and snuck up behind him. Giving a start, he stuffed the card into his pocket quickly, wondering if she had seen it.

"What did you have just now?" she asked curiously, eyeing his pocket.

He opened his mouth to ask about the card, if it had been her drawing, but, for some reason, he lied and said, "Nothing important."

Maya raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. . . Anyway, let's go back with the others, okay?"

"Um. . . sure." Phoenix followed her back to the table, his hand still in his pocket, holding the card tightly, thinking, _Tomorrow. I'll ask her about it. . . tomorrow._

—_May, Seven Years Ago—_

"Hey, Daddy, want to see a cool trick?"

Phoenix looked up from the advertising section of the newspaper he was reading to see Trucy standing in front of him, holding a pair of blue and pink woman's underwear. He didn't even blink at this; he was getting used to Trucy showing him such things at unexpected moments.

"Trucy, it's eleven thirty. Shouldn't you be asleep?" he asked her, rubbing his eyes. "You have school tomorrow."

Trucy looked at him with wide, sad eyes. "Please, Daddy?" she asked. "I've been staying up real late for the past couple of weeks working on it!"

Phoenix stared at her. "How late?"

"Um. . . two o'clock in the morning, I think," Trucy replied, biting her lower lip.

Letting out a sigh, Phoenix stood up. "How about you get some rest, and then show me in the morning?" he suggested, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Trucy looked up at him, her face concerned. "You should be getting some rest too, Daddy," she pointed out. "You've been staying up even later than me, sometimes."

Phoenix yawned. _She has a point. . . _he thought to himself. "I'll finish up here and go to bed after you go to back to your room."

Trucy nodded. "Okay!" She skipped off to her bedroom, underwear in hand. Phoenix, shaking his head with a smile on his face, went back to his newspaper, and scanned the rest of the ads.

_Nothing, _he thought, sighing, heading for the light switch. At that moment, the phone rang. Curious to see who would be calling so late, he picked up the phone and said, "Hey."

"Hi, Nick," replied Maya's voice. She sounded exhausted, even more than he was, and she spoke quickly, as if not wanting to be overheard. "The elders found out about me visiting you all those times."

"What?" Phoenix sat down on the sofa, completely forgetting his fatigue. "How'd they find out?"

"They got the truth out of Pearly last week," Maya said, sounding apologetic. "She can't lie, Nick, you know that."

"No, she can't," Phoenix admitted with a sigh. "So, how'd they take it?"

He could imagine Maya grimace at the memory. "Not well. You should have heard them. They kept going on and on about how it was my duty as the Master to 'restore faith in the Kurain Channeling Technique,' and, 'not to fraternize with criminals.'"

Phoenix winced.

"I know you're not a criminal," Maya reassured him quickly, correctly predicting his reaction to this piece of news. "Anyway, they've been keeping me busy with all sorts of chores. Besides training other mediums and channeling for clients, I've had to clean the manor from top to bottom, handle all the applications coming in from people interested in channeling, and go through every single training technique they can think of. And I thought Aunt Morgan was tough."

"And I was feeling sorry for myself," Phoenix said sympathetically.

"I haven't even gotten to the worst part," Maya replied, her voice suddenly growing hard. "I got into an argument with them this morning. I told them that _I_ was the Master, not them, and I will visit whoever I want. And if I wasn't allowed to keeping talking to you, Pearly could take over as the Master."

Phoenix nodded. "Sounds like a reasonable – wait, _what_?"

Maya sounded angry as she continued, "So, I'm packing up right now. I'll be leaving tomorrow morning."

"_What_?!" Phoenix repeated, dumbfounded.

"Nick, are you deaf?" Maya asked, some of her anger wearing off. "I said I'm leaving–"

"No, no, I heard what you said," Phoenix assured her. "I just couldn't believe what you said. Maya, why are you giving this up?"

"Because I wouldn't put it past them to ban me from leaving Kurain if I stayed the Master and kept visiting you," Maya explained, as if this was obvious. "I also overheard them talking about getting a matchmaker, so I don't end up marrying you or something."

Phoenix shook his head wearily. "Listen, Maya – wait, what did you just say?"

Maya paused for a couple of seconds. At last, she said, "Um. . . they all think we're getting engaged, here in Kurain."

"Well, we're not, and we never will," Phoenix pointed out, rubbing his temple with one hand. He was in no condition to convince Maya to stay in Kurain Village at a quarter to midnight.

There was silence on the other end. Concerned, Phoenix said, "Maya? You still there?"

"Yeah," Maya replied softly. "Yeah, I'm still here."

Phoenix took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wanted to convince her to stay, but the only argument he could think of was of a rather delicate nature, and he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to bring it up or not. Coming to a decision at last, he said, "Maya, Mr. Armando wasn't sentenced for manslaughter so you would give up being the Master a few months later. Your mother–" He stopped for a moment, wondering if she continue, and then finished quickly, as if this would dull the pain his words might cause, "Your mother didn't die for you so that Morgan would win and make Pearls the Master."

Maya didn't answer for a couple of seconds. Phoenix wondered if he had brought it too far with the mention of Maya's mother, Misty, the old Master. At last, she said, "I knew you would want me to stay. But, Nick–"

"Maya, listen. Stay in Kurain. Pearls needs you, and you need to stop worrying about me. You should be concentrating on restoring faith in the Kurain Channeling Technique."

"But you need Pearly and me!" Maya objected. "Remember that day last month, when we went out for lunch? I told you, you were always there for me when I needed it most. Why shouldn't I help you?"

Phoenix took a slow, deep breath. "Maya, I'm fine," he insisted. "I really am. Just. . . don't sneak away on the train again. You'll just. . . have to call and send letters or something," he finished, his voice reluctant. He looked forward to these visits from Maya, during the times when he would otherwise be alone, with no Trucy to distract him with new magic tricks for her shows. In a way, it felt as if nothing had really changed when Maya came; she still acted like herself and he temporarily forgot about the events of his final trial, something not even Trucy had managed to do.

Maya sighed wearily. "Okay," she said, her voice quiet. "Sorry, Nick."

"Don't be sorry," he told her, trying to stifle a yawn. "It's okay."

"I guess." Maya paused for a couple of seconds. Then, she added, albeit hesitantly, "Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you tired?"

Phoenix nodded, realized Maya could see him, and said, "A little bit. Why?"

"Well, I was going to tell you something, but if you'd rather go to sleep. . ." Maya was sounding as if she was regretting mentioning it at all.

"A couple of minutes more won't hurt," Phoenix assured her. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

Maya took a deep breath, steeling herself. "Nick, there's something that I've been wanting to tell you for a while. I, um. . ." She stopped abruptly, then said, "Never mind. It doesn't matter. Bye, Nick."

Mystified, Phoenix replied, "Bye, Maya," and hung up the phone, feeling heavy-hearted.

At that moment, Trucy marched into the room, gazing at him indignantly. "Daddy! Your promised you would go to sleep!"

"Sorry, Trucy," Phoenix said, standing up and blinking sleepily. "Someone called."

The look of indignation on Trucy's face disappeared. "Was it Maya?" she asked hopefully. He nodded. "Is she coming here again?"

Phoenix shook his head. "No. She can't come for a while, Trucy."

Trucy looked upset. "Why?"

"She's not allowed," he replied quietly, "because of that trial."

Trucy grabbed Phoenix's hand. "It's okay, Daddy. I'll always be here," she said with a smile on her face. "It's going to be fine. You'll see."

Phoenix nodded. "Yeah," he said with very little conviction in his voice, and he allowed Trucy to lead him to his bedroom, lost in thought.

—_January, Six Years Ago—_

Phoenix followed an officer down the hallway of the detention centre, though he hardly needed someone to show him where to go. He didn't know how many times he had come in here to see clients when he had been attorney, only that he knew his way around the place fairly well. But today, he wasn't here to see a client; he was here to see a friend.

The officer opened a door on the left, and gestured into the room behind. Phoenix stepped by him to find himself in a room divided into two halves by a pane of glass. On his side of the glass was an uncomfortable-looking, straight-backed wooden chair; Phoenix took it wordlessly and glanced sideways at the officer.

"How long will she be?" he asked. The officer, a woman with short, dark brown hair, shrugged.

"About five minutes," she said, then left, shutting the door behind her. Phoenix, shaking his head, settled into a more comfortable position, and waited.

Five minutes later, the door on the other side of the glass divider opened. A young woman with long black hair was ushered inside by another officer, looking at Phoenix with a sad sort of smile on her face. She walked over to the chair on her side of the divider and sat down, her eyes never leaving Phoenix's. The officer took a position in the corner of the room and watched Phoenix suspiciously, recognizing him from past visits.

"Hi, Iris," he said softly, smiling back at her.

"Hello, Feenie," she replied. "I didn't expect to see you." She looked Phoenix up and down, biting her lower lip. "You haven't visited me since last April."

Phoenix knew why she was looking at him this way. The last time he had come here to visit her, he had been wearing his trademark blue suit, red tie, and yellow attorney's badge. Since he had lost his badge, however, he had taken to wearing hoodies, jeans, and a blue beanie that covered his spiky black hair. He had seen no point in continuing to wear his suit, which felt wrong to wear without his badge, but had kept it for nostalgia's sake, and in case the situation ever came up where he needed to wear one.

"I'm sorry," Phoenix apologized. "I've been busy."

"I know," Iris replied, still biting her lip. "I heard about that case."

Phoenix felt the bottom of his stomach drop away. "You don't think I _did_ forge anything, do you?" he asked anxiously.

Iris smiled and shook her head. "No, Feenie. I know you didn't. You're too honest."

There was an awkward silence between them for a moment. Phoenix, deciding to break it, said, "I heard you're getting out soon."

"Next week," Iris confirmed, looking as if she would have preferred if the subject was avoided.

"Good," Phoenix replied with a smile. "Because, I was thinking, after you're released, we could go out for dinner or something."

Iris looked down at the floor. "Um, Feenie?"

"Yeah?"

She continued to look down at the floor as she said, "I've had a lot to think about here, and I've decided to go back to Hazakura Temple."

Phoenix stared at her, feeling as if she had just punched him in the gut. "Huh?"

"I'm not a full nun yet," Iris said, her voice quiet. "I wanted to take the vows, when I was eighteen, but Sister Bikini said to wait until I was older, just in case I fell in love and couldn't back out. I didn't think I ever would, but. . . then I met you, and I didn't want to take them."

"So, why are you taking them now?" Phoenix asked.

"I've committed many sins," Iris began, still not looking up, "and I need to repay all the people I've hurt. Sister Bikini, Valerie, Terry, Godot, Misty, Maya, Pearl, and. . ." Here she looked up into his face before finishing, "you, Feenie."

Phoenix continued to stare at her silently. Iris's eyes began to fill with tears. "I'm sorry, Feenie," she whispered. "I've hurt too many people. I can't keep doing it."

"It's okay," Phoenix lied, still feeling as if someone had punched him. "I suppose one of these vows is a vow of chastity, huh?"

Iris nodded. "I really am sorry," she whispered. "Really. But you have Maya, still."

"What?" Phoenix said, confused at the sudden mention of Maya.

"She's your girlfriend, isn't she?" Iris asked, biting her lip again. "You seem very attached to her.

"No, no," he reassured her, though for some reason, he could not muster the usual amount of conviction when he set someone straight on this matter. "It's not like that between us."

Iris looked confused. "But. . ." she began. The officer checked his watch at that moment and announced, "Time's up."

Phoenix let out a sigh. "I guess this is goodbye, then," he said awkwardly as Iris stood up.

She nodded, gazing into his eyes. "I love you, Feenie," she whispered.

"I love you too," Phoenix replied, watching her back away from the glass divider and follow the officer out into the hallway beyond. He sat there for a moment longer, staring longingly at the door she had just disappeared behind, then stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

—_Present Day—_

"Phoenix?"

He came out of his reverie at the mention of his name, looking round to see Mia waving a hand in front of his face.

"Sorry," he apologized, getting to his feet. Mia stood up too, looking grave.

"So, I imagine you'll keep looking for Maya," she said, her voice expressionless.

He nodded, taking a deep, nervous breath. Mia smiled at him encouragingly and added, "I'd better return to the next world. Good luck, Phoenix."

"Bye, Mia," he said, a little sadly, watching as Mia walked in the direction of Viola Hall, looking completely out of place in the hotel corridor. When she turned the corner and disappeared from view, he headed for the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, waiting for the doors to close and the elevator to descend.

He had an idea of where he might find Maya.

* * *

**O_O Man, I wasn't expecting the chapter to be this long. I was expecting 3k. Guess it never hurts to over achieve, though. :)**

**I. . . really can't think of anything else to say, besides I'm really looking forward to the next chapter. It's going to be. . . interesting. 8D**


	9. The Talisman

**MorenoX: Aw, but I want to know where you think Maya is! D8 Anyway, Apollo gets more lines next chapter, and yeah, I'll be writing about the guests' reactions when Maya and Phoenix come back from. . . wherever they are. :) Just not this chapter. It'll be the next one.**

**Kuchiki Jeanne: Nope, it's not the Wright Anything Agency! . . . Though that is a pretty good guess. I'd never actually thought of her going there. -is in idiot-**

**Bico: Your concern is a very valid one. -thinks for a moment- I'll try to do something the next time we see Pearl. I'm not exactly sure **_**what**_** yet, but I'll think of something. Probably. (Also, trust me, I do not ship ApolloxTrucy. I'm an ApolloxVera person. XD)**

**~~: Trust me, I'm not going to blow up at you because you've pointed out something wrong with the fic. I'm not **_**that**_** mean. XD Anyway, I think that, even though Maya and Phoenix never really have shown much "romantic love," as you called it, toward each other, some of the people at the reunion might have guessed, like Edgeworth, and the others would just assume they'd been going out for the past few years or so. Or something like that. That's just my opinion, though. -shrugs- Also more fics like this? I have one in mind. . . but you'll have to wait for the author's note of the final chapter for details. -smiles evilly-**

**And, on that note, I shall stop and let you continue on with this chapter. :)**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**The Talisman**

Phoenix poked his head inside the door of Walter's Burger Joint, looking around. The restaurant was almost deserted at this time of night; a couple of employees were standing behind the counter, talking to each other about how they had better things to do then work, and there was only one customer in the entire place, a young woman with black hair, wearing a spirit medium costume, sitting in the booth he and Maya had always sat in, a half-eaten cheeseburger in front of her as she stared ahead dully.

"Maya?" he said quietly, walking up to her. Maya turned around in her seat, and he could tell she'd been crying; her eyes were red, and he could see where tears had fallen down her face.

"I knew you'd end up coming here," Maya said half-heartedly. "Nick, go back to the reunion. I'm fine."

Phoenix sat down across from her, gazing at her stubbornly. "No you're not," he said. "You're anything but fine."

Maya made a face and looked down at the table. Phoenix took a deep breath, steeling himself. How did one go about telling someone things like this, anyway? He'd already hurt her once tonight; he didn't want to say something wrong and do it again. At last, he said, "While Pearl and I were looking for you, she channeled Mia."

"Hmm?" Maya said, still looking at the table. "Sis?"

"Yeah. And she told me something interesting." Phoenix slid his hand into his pocket, watching Mia unblinkingly, feeling his stomach turn into a giant knot. "Remember when your mother died, how you left Mia that note, asking what you should do?"

Maya knew where this conversation was headed. She tensed up, her hands clenching into fists, still not looking at him. "Yeah," was all she said, her voice quiet, pleading.

"Mia said that, at the end of the note, you asked her, in case you didn't make it, to tell me that you loved me." He took another deep breath, then asked in a rush, "Is that true?"

He had been expecting it. Chains suddenly appeared from nowhere, crisscrossing in front of Maya, and a single lock, red and yellow, appeared, connecting the chains together. Phoenix extracted his hand from his pocket, pulling out his glowing Magatama, and set it on the table between them. This was his prized possession, the one thing that could show when a person was lying or wanted to hide a secret by exposing Psyche-Locks.

Maya looked at the Magatama for a moment. "You can see them," she said at last. "How many are there?"

"Just one," Phoenix informed her. He'd been expecting more, but he supposed she was tired of hiding the truth, only putting up a feeble resistance.

"I see." Maya bit her lip and was silent, waiting for him to ask the first question. She wasn't going to give in just because he knew he was hiding something.

Phoenix sighed, thinking of how to start. This was awkward; he had never had to break a Pysche-Lock of Maya's before, and he didn't want to now, but if Maya wasn't going to tell him otherwise, he would have to. "I didn't see any Psyche-Locks when Mia told me about the note," he informed her. "That means she wasn't lying. You really did write it, didn't you?"

Maya shrugged. "Do you have the note as evidence?" she asked. "And how do you know I didn't mean like brother-sister love? That's too vague, Nick."

"Touche," he replied, biting his lip as he tried to think of another angle from which to attack. Finally, he added, "What about Pearl? She seems convinced that we're in love."

Maya shook her head. "You've always said it was just Pearl," she pointed out. "Sorry, Nick, but that's not going to work."

_Dammit, _Phoenix thought, tapping the table with his fingers, staring at the Psyche-Lock, wishing it would just shatter. He only had one other argument, and he wasn't sure that this would hold if the others had failed. "Remember after Iris's trial, when we all went to Très Bien? Franziska pulled me away from the others to give me something."

"Yeah?" Maya said, a bit confused. _She doesn't know that Franziska had it, _he realized. "What was it?"

"A card," Phoenix replied simply. "A certain calling card."

Maya stared at him blankly. Then, a look of comprehension dawned on her face, and she said, "Oh. DeKiller's card. The one with the shell."

"Yeah, the one with the shell," he said, nodding. "Except, this one had a little something extra on it. You know what it was, don't you?"

Maya didn't reply; she just gazed at him, waiting for him to tell her.

"On the card, you had drawn me," he said triumphantly, watching the Psyche-Lock, expecting to break. To his surprise, it didn't, but Maya was beginning to look a little nervous.

"Well, of course I did," Maya replied. "You were my best friend, and you were my only hope of getting out of there."

"But you would think that you would have drawn the person you loved the most!" Phoenix protested, trying desperately to make this argument work. If it didn't, he had nothing. _Nothing_. "You could have drawn Mia, or Pearl, or someone else, but you drew _me_."

Maya was looking edgy as she countered, "Like I said, you were the only person who could help me, so it's not really surprising that I drew you, right? And the outline of the shell was perfect for drawing your face and hair, anyway."

"But–" Phoenix began, then stopped, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. Maya had successfully shut down each and every one of his arguments. He had none left, and there was nothing he could do or say about it. A Psyche-Lock he couldn't break, hiding a secret he'd never thought existed. . .

But he had to be able to break it. He _had_ to. Maya wouldn't admit anything, because she was afraid of rejection, and, to be honest, he couldn't blame her, not after what he'd said back at the Gatewater.

_I can't let that distract me,_ Phoenix thought, fighting the urge to kick himself. _I've got to think of something. _He looked around the restaurant for inspiration, first at the employees behind the counter, who were staring at them, then at the door, then at Maya, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't think of anything.

_It's over, _he thought to himself, defeated. _There's nothing that will break that Psyche-Lock. Nothing._

Maya was playing with her Master's Talisman when he looked up at her. She was looking down at the table again, toward the Magatama. With one hand, she pushed it toward him. "Nick, you can go back to the reunion," she said quietly. "I'll be okay. Tell Pearly I'll be coming back in an hour or so, but don't tell her where I am."

"Maya–" Phoenix began, his voice full of defeat, but before he could finish, his eyes slid to the Talisman that she was twirling in her fingers. He leapt to his feet in excitement as he yelled, "_Your Talisman, Maya_!"

"Hey, keep it down over there," one of the employees called, annoyed. Sheepishly, Phoenix sat down again, Maya staring at him in surprise.

"My what?" she asked, but she quickly whipped her hand away from her Talisman.

"The Kurain Master's Talisman," he said confidently. "The Master of Kurain Village is to wear it without taking it off until the day they die. And there is a small cavity in the Talisman, as I'm sure you know. Remember when we opened it, after your mother died? Remember what we found inside?"

Maya continued to stare at him, but this time, she understood what he meant. "A picture of Sis and me," she replied. "A picture of the people closest to her heart. . ."

"Exactly," Phoenix said triumphantly. "So, it stands to reason that you would have something close to your heart in there. I'm going to guess a photo of some kind. And whoever is in that photo is the person you love the most." He took a deep breath, then asked, "Maya, could you show me what you have in that Talisman?"

Maya didn't reply for a few seconds. Her eyes had slid to the Talisman hanging around her neck, and she was deep in thought. At last, without looking up, she whispered, "I'm tired of lying to you, Nick." She reached for the Talisman and, slowly, deliberately, she opened it.

The Psyche-Lock shattered. The chains rolled back, blinking into nonexistence, and Phoenix drew the Magatama toward him, pocketing it as he watched Maya extract a small, folded photograph from inside the Talisman. She handed it to him wordlessly, still not looking at him, and he accepted it, unfolding it slowly and staring at it for several long moments.

A younger, happier-looking version of himself stared back at him, smiling at the camera. There wasn't much to the picture, just him and the wall of one of the defendant lobbies at the courthouse. It must have been taken at least seven years ago, because he was wearing his suit and his attorney's badge, and due to the fact that it looked rather worn and free of dust, he assumed she must have taken the picture out often.

Phoenix handed the photo back to her. Maya inserted the picture back into the Talisman and closed it. Then, refusing to look at him, she said, "I'll admit it. I've had a crush on you for a while."

"How long is a while?" Phoenix asked, curious.

Maya shrugged. "Um. . . it was a little bit after Sis's murder trial, I think. So, about nine years."

Phoenix let out a low whistle, but otherwise, didn't say anything, wanting her to continue.

"I didn't tell you," Maya continued quietly, "because that would have made our friendship really awkward."

"And because you thought I didn't feel the same way?" Phoenix suggested.

Maya nodded slowly. "That, too," she conceded. "Anyway, it was just a crush for a while. You know, like the crushes you get in school. Then I left to train to become a full-fledged spirit medium, and I thought that I might get over it if I didn't see you for a while. That's mostly the reason I didn't want you to come visit. But I was really starting to miss you about a week after I'd arrived in Kurain, more than I'd ever expected, and I just kind of had an emotional breakdown and hid in my room. I didn't think anyone would hear me, but Pearly wanted me to play with her and she found me crying."

"I'm going to guess this is when she found out about me," Phoenix said, nodding.

"Not really. She'd already heard about you, because everyone in Kurain knew I was working with you and they were really ticked at me for not training." Maya paused for a moment, then continued, "Pearl asked me what was wrong. So I told her about how I felt about you, and I guess she just automatically assumed you felt the same way about me. That's why she's always going on about us being in love."

Phoenix nodded. "Well, that makes sense," he said. "She'd have to have gotten the idea from somewhere." What he really wanted to say was that he felt incredibly stupid for not seeing any of this, because as Maya explained it, it was all beginning to make sense, but he decided to just let her continue letting out her thoughts and feelings for the past nine years.

"And when that Dr. Grey asked me to channel that nurse?" Maya continued, her voice beginning to crack a little. "Remember how one of the conditions was for him to bring you along?"

How could he forget? It wasn't every day he had people who wouldn't shut up about the weather waltz into his office and tell him that he was going to see Maya after months of her absence. Aloud, he said, "Vaguely."

"I couldn't take it any longer," Maya admitted. "I wanted to see you. I knew I wasn't going to get over it, so I told him I wasn't channeling any spirit without seeing you first. And then, that murder happened." Her voice grew hard here as she continued, "Even I thought I did it. I thought I was going to be sentenced to death, and there was nothing I could do. But you. . . just like the last time I'd been on trial, you believed I was innocent. And you saved me again."

Phoenix smiled a little to himself. "I wasn't going to let you die," he told her.

"I know," Maya said, her voice sounding odd. He was sure she was suppressing tears now. "I sort of thought you wouldn't take me because you were bound to lose. But I also knew that wouldn't stop you. And it wasn't the last time you'd saved me, either. Remember DeKiller?"

"I don't think I could forget," Phoenix admitted. "When you disappeared from the Gatewater, I was worried you were going to get kidnapped again."

Maya smiled, but she didn't look at him. "DeKiller told me, after I woke up, about Enguarde's trial, and the deal between the two of you. Then he locked me in this sort of wine cellar, leaving me with that card and a photograph and pen I'd swiped when I managed to get out of the room. So I wrote you a message on the photograph, thinking you'd probably come sooner or later and DeKiller and I would be long gone by then. Then, to pass the time, I took the pen and drew your face on the card. You were my last hope, and it just felt so comforting to see your face, even if it was just a drawn face."

"I see," Phoenix replied, lost in thought. One of the memories that had played out in his head while talking to Mia had been a call from Maya, and something about the call was beginning to bug him. "I have a question for you. Do you remember when you called me, informing me you were going to abandon your position as the Master because the elders wouldn't let you visit me anymore?"

Maya nodded. "It's pretty hard to forget."

"There was something you were going to tell me," Phoenix continued. "You broke off, though, and then hung up. Were you going to tell me how you really felt?"

Maya nodded again. "I'd been working up the courage to tell you since the DeKiller thing. I was going to tell you if Dahlia Hawthorne didn't kill me, actually. That's why I told Sis to tell you if I didn't make it. I wanted you to know, and I was worried it was going to be too late to tell you. But then, when I came to, I didn't have a chance to tell you before Iris. . ." Her voice trailed away, but he knew what she was talking about. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the memory. He and Iris were over now. . . but Maya probably didn't know that, after seeing them together all night.

"So, that's why you didn't tell me over the phone?" he asked. "You thought Iris and I were still together, or were going to get back together after she got out of prison?"

"Yes," Maya admitted with a sigh. "I figured that, even if you did feel the same way, you would prefer Iris over me."

"Iris is a nun now," Phoenix said. "A full-fledged one. She had to take a vow of chastity. I'm not going to lie, but I did want to start over with her after she was released from jail." He paused for a moment, then said, "She also seemed to think that you and I were dating."

Maya hesitated before saying, "I. . . see." She coughed, then said, "Well, it's out now, I guess. All of it."

Phoenix shook his head. "Not all of it."

Maya looked up at him sharply. "What do you mean?" she asked warily.

Phoenix stared across the table at her for what felt like an eternity, but what couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds. "There's still another side, isn't there? Don't you want to know what my take is on this?"

"I already know," she replied dully. "I've always known. That's why I didn't tell you."

Phoenix tried hard not to smile. "Then you won't be surprised by this," he replied quietly. Then, leaning across the table, he kissed her.

Maya went rigid with shock. After a few seconds, they broke away, Phoenix feeling like an idiot as he grinned at her, Maya staring at him as if he'd grown two heads.

"Wh-What?" she spluttered, confused. "Nick? What the–?"

"I guess I've been in denial for a long time," Phoenix replied with a shrug, still smiling.

"But what about what you said at the reunion?" Maya asked, still confused. "And all those times Pearly talked about us. It doesn't–"

Phoenix shrugged again. "Like I said, I've been in denial for a while."

Maya bit her lip. "So that wasn't just out of pity?" she asked, her voice hopeful.

"Nope," he said, shaking his head.

Maya's face suddenly broke out into a huge smile, looking happier than he had ever seen her. His own smile broadened, and they kissed again before they remembered that there were two teenaged girls that were almost certainly in hysterics over their whereabouts.

"We'd better be getting back," Phoenix said reluctantly, standing up. Maya stood up too, looking so light-headed that she could float, and held his hand.

"It's okay," she said with a smile. "We have another two days until I have to go back to Kurain. We have a lot of catching up to do."

And together, holding hands, they walked out of the restaurant and out into the street, Phoenix thinking, _Yes we do. Yes we do._

* * *

**This may seem like the end. It's not. We still have one more chapter left, which is more like an epilogue, but whatever. **_**Then**_** it's the end.**

**Anyway, this is the first time I've written anything like this, so I don't know how well it turned out, if it was cheesy, etc. I need to be able to judge my work better. XDD**


	10. More

****

loveyourbiggestfan: I got the idea for the talisman while replaying the end of Trials and Tribulations. I figured it was the best (and only) idea I had for breaking the Psyche-Lock. I wasn't sure if people were going to like it or not, though. XD

**MorenoX25: Reading your review gave me an idea for a pun about Winston Payne's name. Now I'm wishing I **_**did**_** invite him so I could use it. :(**

**Kuchiki Jeanne: -gives icepack to numb the pain from the head slam- I'm sorry I didn't get to update before June 1. DD8 Damn school.**

**Brendan Aurabolt: Sequel? I'm going to have to make you wait until the Author's Note at the end of this chapter for a confirmation or denial about **_**that**_**. . . -smiles evilly-**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

**More**

Phoenix and Maya entered Viola Hall unnoticed, looking around for a few seconds. Most of the guests were bunched up into groups (except for Will Powers, who was standing off by himself) and talking amongst themselves in low voices. By the looks on their faces, they were wondering where the two of them had disappeared to. In the back corner, Phoenix could see Trucy, Pearl, and Apollo sitting at a table. Pearl had stopped crying, but her face was wet and she was drying it with a napkin, while Trucy patted her on the shoulder comfortingly, though she looked worried. Apollo, who had succeeded in removing the bucket from his foot, was fiddling with his bracelet and looking around the room distractedly.

It was then that Apollo noticed Phoenix and Maya and, looking relieved, called across the room, "Mr. Wright!"

Everyone in the room turned to look, surprised. At the same moment, they all noticed the fact that Phoenix's arm was slung over Maya's shoulder, and, guessing the reason correctly, some began to clap, while others exchanged confused looks.

Phoenix ignored this; he was scanning the guests' faces, looking for Iris. He caught sight of her standing between Sister Bikini and Larry, watching him. Their eyes met for a moment, and Iris smiled sadly and nodded to him before looking away again.

"Let's go see Pearly," Maya whispered in Phoenix's ear, nodding to where her cousin was sitting. "She and Trucy must have been worried."

They drifted over to Pearl's table, but before they reached it, Trucy had jumped up from her seat and raced over to them, looking as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. "Daddy!" she cried excitedly. "Where did you find Maya? Are you really together? You're not just acting, right?"

"A restaurant, yes, and no, we're not," Phoenix replied, grinning at her.

"So, will you be my new Mommy?" Trucy asked, turning to Maya, who shrugged and looked at Phoenix.

"Who knows, Trucy?" she said with a laugh. "Who knows?"

Apollo was watching Phoenix, almost apologetically. "I was going to warn you about the announcement. . . but then those two–" He pointed at Trucy and Pearl before continuing, "locked me inside a closet."

"So you, a twenty-two-year-old man, let two teenaged girls push you into a broom closet?" Phoenix said, trying to keep a straight face as he raised an eyebrow at him. Apollo's face went as red as his suit.

At that moment, Larry appeared, grinning in a sheepish sort of way. "Hey, nice work, Nick! I didn't think you had it in you!" he said, looking at Maya. "I'm just wondering why you can land a chick and I can't. . ."

Phoenix let out an exasperated sigh. "Larry, go away," he said shortly.

Larry looked as if he'd just been punched in the stomach. "Why does everyone keep saying that?" he asked, hurt, before turning around and shuffling away, looking even more pitiful than usual.

Gumshoe and Maggey were just behind him. Gumshoe watched Larry walk away with a raised eyebrow before turning to Phoenix and Maya. "Where were you all this time, pal?" he asked, looking at them curiously. "We were considering looking for both of you, you took so long."

And so began a never-ending slew of questions from what seemed every guest in Viola Hall. Phoenix found himself answering the same questions six or seven times, and it was really beginning to wear down his patience; right now, all he wanted was to be alone with Maya, and going by the look on her face, that's what she wanted, too, but the others wanted to know what had happened, where they had been, why the had taken so long, and several confused individuals needed confirmation that, yes, they _were_ together.

About forty minutes after the barrage of questions began, Trucy poked Phoenix while he was halfway through a recount of what had happened to Regina and Max. Grateful for an excuse to stop answering their questions, Phoenix turned to her.

"Yeah, Trucy?" he asked, scratching his chin absent-mindedly. It was then that he noticed there her eyes were as wide as saucers, and that her lower lip was bleeding, she had bitten it so much.

"Pearl's not here," Trucy whispered to him, looking around anxiously to make sure no one was listening. "She said she was going to the bathroom half an hour ago, but she's not back yet. Apollo and I have been looking for the past ten minutes."

"Not again, dammit," Phoenix muttered under his breath. The last thing he wanted to do was look all over the hotel for the second time in one night. _Well, the second-last thing, I guess, _he conceded. _The last thing would be to stay here and keep answering everyone's questions._ Coming to a decision, he nudged Maya and whispered into her ear, "Trucy said Pearls is missing."

Maya blinked in surprise. "She's probably in our room," she replied quietly, rummaging around in her pockets for her room key. To the room at large, she announced, "Nick and I have to, um, go somewhere. We'll be back in a little bit."

Ignoring people's comments, they pushed through the guests and left Viola Hall at a brisk pace, Maya still looking for her key. "I hope Pearly _is_ in our room, and that she didn't pack up and go back to Kurain Village or something."

"Why would she go back to Kurain?" Phoenix asked, raising an eyebrow.

Maya shrugged, finally finding her key and extracting it from her pocket. "I don't know. Maybe she blames herself for me running off earlier?"

A few minutes later, Maya stopped him outside of Room 308. She unlocked the door and was about to grab the doorknob when it twisted, seemingly of its own accord. The door swung open to reveal Pearl standing inside, her eyes still red, carrying a couple of bags. Catching sight of Maya and Phoenix, she stopped, dropping the bags in surprise, and stared at them in silence with wide eyes.

"Pearls, what are you doing?" Phoenix asked, looking at the bags.

Pearl lowered her eyes to the floor and didn't respond.

"You weren't going to run away or something, right?" he pressed further.

Rather than say anything, Pearl nodded, beginning to blush a little.

Maya shot Phoenix a, "Ha! I told you so!" sort of look, then turned to Pearl. "Here, let's go inside for a minute," she said, gently leading Pearl back inside the hotel room.

Phoenix followed them inside, shutting the door behind him as Maya sat down on a nearby armchair, Pearl reluctantly settling down on the edge of one of the double beds. Phoenix perched on the arm of Maya's chair, watching as Pearl started playing with the Magatama around her neck so that she didn't have to look at either of them.

"Is this about when I left earlier, Pearly?" Maya asked, her voice gentle as she reached out to pat her cousin's shoulder.

Pearl, twirling her Magatama between her fingers, refused to look up as she nodded. "I didn't mean to," she said in a small voice. "I thought. . . I thought you really were getting married. And I hurt you again, Mystic Maya, so I thought it would be better for me to take the next train to Kurain Village than to stay here. I'm sorry, Mystic Maya, Mr. Nick."

"Sorry?" Phoenix said, a bit surprised. "Why should you be sorry?"

Pearl looked up, the expression on her face confused. "I hurt Mystic Maya again," she repeated, as if this was obvious. "I'm so. . . so stupid to have thought you really were engaged."

"You're not stupid, and there's nothing to be sorry about," Phoenix told her firmly. Turning to Maya for support, he added, "Right?"

"Right," Maya confirmed with a smile. "Pearly, it's okay. Because, you know what? If you hadn't made that announcement, sure, I wouldn't have run off. But then Nick and I wouldn't be dating, would we?"

Pearl sighed and nodded reluctantly. "But I hurt. . ."

"Pearly, _it doesn't matter_," Maya told her. "Sure, if you hadn't made that announcement, I wouldn't have run off. But then Nick and I wouldn't be dating, would we?"

Pearl nodded, a small smile unfolding on her face. Then, after a small pause, she hugged both of them, saying, "Thank you, Mystic Maya, Mr. Nick."

Maya looked from Pearl, who was now hugging Phoenix, to Phoenix himself. They smiled at each other, and Phoenix said, "No, Pearls. Thank you."

—

"Trucy, can you help me with the luggage?" Apollo asked, dropping an armload of bags onto the ground with a sigh of relief.

"Nope," Trucy replied with a grin. "You need the exercise!"

Apollo glared at her. "_Pearl_'s helping," he said pointedly as Pearl entered the station, carrying cat Phoenix's cage.

Trucy turned to look at Phoenix, her eyes wide and innocent. "Daddy!" she said in a pleading voice, sounding as if she were a starving person begging for a scrap of bread rather than to be exempt from carrying bags.

Phoenix, smiling a little, nodded to the luggage at Apollo's feet. With a sigh, Trucy picked up two bags and walked away, leaving the rest for Apollo, who picked them up and followed her, swearing under his breath

It was the day of Maya and Pearl's departure, and Phoenix, Apollo, and Trucy had come to see them off. Maya, who had said many times that she would have stayed if she didn't have a heap of Master's duties to catch up on, promised to come back soon, but Phoenix didn't want her to go, despite the fact that they'd spent all of their time since the reunion together. Like Maya had said, they had a lot to catch up on. . .

At that moment, Phoenix became aware of the fact that Maya was poking him in the side and nodding to Pearl, who was looking at him expectantly.

"Sorry, what?" Phoenix asked, looking from Maya to Pearl and back again.

"I asked if you were going to come to Kurain sometime, Mr. Nick," Pearl said, trying not to laugh.

Phoenix shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. He couldn't help but remember the last time he'd gone to Kurain, and how well _that_ visit had turned out.

"Pearl!" Trucy called from where she and Apollo were standing by one of the train's doors, pointing at the cage that Pearl was holding. They must have spent the past few minutes loading the luggage onto the train, because there were no bags in sight. "We need to put Phoenix on the train!"

Confused, Pearl looked down at the cage she was holding, evidently having forgotten that she had it, then walked over to join Trucy and Apollo. When she was out of earshot, Maya grinned at him. "You _should _come to Kurain sometime." Then, as a thought struck her, her face fell. "Granted, the elders may not be to fond of it, but. . ."

"I thought they were all right with me now that the whole evidence thing was cleared up," Phoenix replied, feeling a bit confused.

Maya shrugged. "They are, but they aren't aware of this. . . development yet. And they don't like admitting they're wrong, so that might be a problem." Then her face brightened. "But who cares what they think?"

"Just don't call me at eleven thirty at night to inform me you're giving up the Master's seat again," Phoenix replied, half kidding, half serious. "Please."

"Deal," Maya said cheerfully.

At that moment, a whistle blew, alerting stragglers that the train was leaving soon. Maya gave a start, looking over her shoulder at the train, and Pearl cried, "Mystic Maya! We have to go!"

Turning back to Phoenix, Maya gave him an apologetic look. "Sorry, Nick," she said. "I'll be back in a week, though. Love you."

"Love you too," Phoenix replied. With a smile, Maya kissed him quickly, then ran to the train, looking over her shoulder and waving to him.

He followed her at a slower pace, watching heavy-heartedly as she boarded the train, Pearl right behind her. A minute later, the doors closed, and the train shuddered, then began to slowly chug out of the station. He could see Maya and Pearl, waving to Apollo, Trucy, and himself from behind a window as the train began to pick up speed. Not wanting to let them go, he walked beside the train, his eyes fixed on Maya's face. Their eyes met; she smiled at him, the same wildly happy smile she had worn that night in the restaurant two days ago, and he smiled back, his heart feeling a little lighter.

Soon, the train was going too quickly for him to keep up, so he stood still and watched as it pulled out of the station, hands in his pockets. Trucy came over to stand beside him, looking at him with concern, while Apollo kept a tactful distance away.

"Daddy?" she asked cautiously.

"Hmm?" he said, turning to look at her.

"You okay?" Trucy asked, biting her lip. "You look. . . sort of sad."

Phoenix smiled at her. "I just wish they could have stayed longer," he admitted.

"Especially Maya?" she pressed.

He nodded. "Especially Maya." Then, placing a hand on her shoulder, he said, in a voice loud enough for Apollo to hear, "Come on, Trucy, Closet Boy. Let's go back to the office."

Apollo grimaced. Phoenix, trying not to smile, led the way out of the building, but his thoughts were far from Apollo or Trucy. He was thinking about how long it had been since Maya and Pearl had arrived. It had seemed like weeks had passed since he had stood on the platform, waiting for their train to pull into the station, weeks since he had been anticipating the craziness their visit would entail (and there had been more than a healthy amount of craziness), weeks since Maya had called him and they'd spoken for the first time in a long time, not the seven days that had actually passed since then.

And as he mulled this over, he remembered what Maya had said, that day she'd called to inform him that she and Pearl were going to be coming. "It's been seven years since we saw each other face-to-face. Don't you think a little visit is overdue?

_It wasn't just a visit that was overdue, _he thought to himself. _There was more. So much more._

* * *

**On the one hand, I'm amazed that I actually managed to finish this before my trip at the end of the month. Actually, scrap the part about the trip; the fact that I actually finished it is something that makes my head spin. On the other hand, I'm sad that this is over. It was fun to write and to read the reviews (which were all appreciated; much thanks to all who wrote one).**

**Now, someone asked me if I were going to write a sequel. When I started this fic, the answer would have been no. It wasn't written with the intent of there being a sequel, and I'm not the kind of person who can commit to finishing **_**one**_** fic, let alone a second.**

**However, last month, when I started that mind-boggling update kick, I had an idea for a sequel. This one (I'm thinking of calling it Matchmaker) will take place in Kurain Village and will be from Maya's point of view, rather than Phoenix's. The second person will either be Trucy or Pearl. (I'm leaning on Trucy, but I still haven't made up my mind.) Expect it to be up in early August. 8D**

**~S.A.**


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